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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 








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4AN H AC CARD : 

THE 

lEIRESSOFDEAD HOPES MINE. 


By MRS.MARYE.BRyAN. 




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^ No. 6S. 


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munro's publications, 


The New York Fashion Bazar Book of the Toilet. 

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NAN HAGGARD, 


THE HEIRESS OF DEAD HOPES MINE. 



MRS. MARY E. BRYAN. 

If 



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Ip 


NAN HAGGARD. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE BUEKmG HOUSE. — CHILD AHD FATHEK. — WHY DID 
HE HOT SATE HIS WIFE ? 

Past midnight on a stormy September night. A wild 
wind was abroad, tossing the tops of the pines and lashing 
the boughs of the creaking old oaks around Widow Cal- 
vert’s cottage. 

The widow was lying in her bed with wide-open eyes. 
Anxiety kept her awake. What if a tree should blow down 
upon Brindle and her new calf in the pasture shed, or the 
rain should fall in such a flood as would make the creek 
rise and carry away the dam of the neighborhood mill? 

Presently she started up and ran to the window. A 
glai’e of light, broader and more continuous than the light- 
ning, illumined the sky in the north. She had seen it 
from her bed; she saw it more plainly now. She watched 
it a moment; it grew broader — brighter. She cried out to 
her daughter, sleeping in another bed in the room: 

‘^Rachel! Rachel! wake up! Mr. Haggard’s house on 
the hill is afire!” 

She snatched a great ox-horn that hung by a cord from 
the wall, and hurrying out on the porch, blew it long and 
loud — a signal to rouse the neighbors. 

The wild, wail-like peal was heard by the keen ears of 
the hounds on twD adjoining farms. They set up an an- 
swering outcry of barks and howls that speedily roused 
their owners, and brought them out where -they could see 


NAN HAGGARD. 


6 

the glare of the burning house— the new cottage built for 
his pretty wife by Haggard, the young Englishman who 
had bought the gold-lands on Haggard Creek and opened 
a mine. 

By the time the active Widow Calvert, hastily dressed, 
had reached the scene of the fire, out of breath, and fol- 
lowed by her daughter Rachel, others were on the way and 
coming up. 

It was too late to subdue the fire. The cottage was 
wrapped in flames, fanned to fury by the wind. Where 
were the occupants? Where were Mrs. Haggard and her 
child? Had they been alone in the house? No; her hus- 
band had come back the day before from England, where 
he had been for three months past. 

Where were they? The group collected before the blaz- 
ing house looked anxiously around. They called. There 
was a faint, childish cry in answer; and, guided by the 
sound, they found Mr. Haggard, sitting propped against 
the trunk of a tree a little distance from the house, with 
his little girl clinging to him — so frightened she shrunk 
away trembling from the kindly hands that touched her. 

The man seemed to be in a state of unconsciousness. 
His eyes were open, but they had no intelligence. He 
stared at them in a bewildered way when they spoke to 
him. They raised him to his feet. He could not walk. 
He staggered in a blmd way like one intoxicated or hurt in 
the head. 

But he showed no sign of any hurt in the necessarily 
hurried examination they made of his person. 

Where was his wife — the lovely young creature who had 
won the hearts of all the neighborhood by her beauty and 
sweetness? 

It was in vain to ask the husband. He evidently did 
not comprehend a word or recognize a face among those 
that pressed about him with eager questions. 

They turned to the child. She had let herself be taken 


NAK HAGGARD. 


7 


in tlie arms of Mrs. Calvert, and with her face pressed 
against the widow ^s motherly bosom, she was sobbing in a 
silent, spasmodic way. 

She was in her little white night-gown only, her pretty 
brown curls blowing in the wind. 

‘‘ Tell us, dearie, where your mamma is? We want to 
find her and bring her to you,’^ coaxed the widow, as she 
took up the folds of her stuff gown and wrapped the child 
in it. 

The little one raised her head. 

Oh, find her, and bring her to me, please she 
pleaded. 

“ But where is she, baby? DonT you know?’’ 

No, I don’t know,” «he said, .with quivering lips. 

Don’t let her burn up. Get my mamma out of the fire. 
Please do!” 

Is she in the burning house?” 

The child repeated her plaintive I don’t know.” 

‘‘ How came you here? Who brought- you? Was it 
your father?” 

Oh, I don’t know. I was in my little bed asleep. I 
heard somebody scream. It sounded like my mamma. I 
heard it one more time. I called out loud to her and 
papa, and started to get up. Then somebody ran in and 
caught me up and wrapped me all in a blanket and 
brought me out here. My head was all wrapped up in the 
blanket. I couldn’t see who it was had me. I unwrapped 
myself; then I saw the big fire up at the window. I ran 
all about before I saw papa sittin’ here under the tree. I 
asked him where mamma was, bwt he wouldn’t mind what 
I said. He wouldn’t talk. I think he’s sick. That’s all 
I know.” 

She told this story in fragments as it was drawn from 
her by questions. Evidently it was all she knew. 

The neighbors looked at one another in bewilderment. 
Had Haggard left his wife to be burned up in the house? 


8 


NAN HAGGARD. 


If not, where was she? What was the matter with him? 
Had he received an injury in trying to save his family, or 
had some one elsO saved the child, and the shock of seeing 
his house burning, with his wife inside, been too much for 
his brain, already unnerved by business troubles? Who 
could tell? And if another had saved the child, where was 
that other? 

Meantime, the flood-gates of the black clouds overhead 
had opened with crashing thunders, and the rain poured 
down in torrents. The people took shelter in the miners’ 
huts close by — vacant now, for the men formerly employed 
in the Haggard mine had gone elsewhere to find employ- 
ment. There had been no work done in the mines for 
three months. Operations had been suspended for want of 
money and because further work seemed useless. The 
mine had failed to hold out its rich promise. The vein 
had suddenly given out. Was it exhausted or lost? Its 
failure was the ruin of its owner — the handsome, enterjiris- 
ing young Englishman who had bought the gold-lands on 
the creek a few years before. He had used his owii fortune 
and borrowed money from his friends in England to open 
the mine and carry on the operations. The yield at first 
had far exceeded his hopes. He thought he had an Eldo- 
rado. He built a pretty Swiss cottage on a picturesque hill 
near the mines, and brought out his wife and child from 
England. Scarcely were they established in their new 
home when calamity came. The gold vein was lost. Hag- 
gard did- not know what to do. He felt sure there was no 
lack of ability in his superintendent. Stephen Brent was 
an experienced California miner, a man who had made a 
fortune once in mining operations in the West, but had 
lost it in unfortunate speculations. No; he felt sure Brent 
was doing his best. He had perfect trust in his quiet, 
taciturn superintendent. 

Brent was his friend and his prospective business partner 
rather than his employe. He was a frequent and welcome 


IfAK HAGGARD. 


9 


guest at his home, and it had been in Brent's charge that 
he left his young wife and child when he went to England 
three months ago for the purpose of selling all his estates 
there, and repaying the friends who had lent him money, 
and also, if possible, of getting means to recommence a 
search for the lost gold vein. 

The superintendent had not been seen about the burn- 
ing house. Two men went to seek him at his temporary 
bachelor's home — a little cottage close to the mine— but 
he was not there. His housekeeper said he had been absent 
three days in the city — forty miles away. He would not 
be back until next day. 


CHAPTER II. 

WHO WAS THE CRIMINAL ? 

Haggard had been carried almost bodily into a miner's 
hut out of the storm. He fell upon the floor in a heap, 
and lay there. His eyes were open, but they were vacant 
and mindless. He took no note of anything. 

The storm raged for more than an hour. The rain fell ' 
in torrents. They could see it. drowning out the flames of 
the half-burned house. The men and the two women 
watched the wild downpour, and uttered futile conjectures 
about what had become of the wife of the unconscious man 
on the floor, and the child who had sobbed herself to sleep 
on the widow's lap. 

At last the rain abated. The storm was over; the moon 
came out through rugged clouds and lighted the still smok- 
ing wreck of Haggard's home. The flames had been ex- 
tinguished before the lower story of the house had been 
consumed. As soon as it was possible, search was made 
for the body of Mrs. Haggard. It was found near the 
unconsumed stairs, and dragged from among the debris — a 
charred and blackened form horrible for those to look 


10 


HAN HAGGAHD. 


upon who had seen her in her living shape of grace and 
blooming beauty. 

So she had really perished in the flames! Why had she 
not escaped? Why had not her husband saved her as well 
as the child? What had prevented her from saving her- 
self? Was it terror? Could she have been asleep and 
waked bewildered and stifled by smoke? 

The question why she had not escaped from the burning 
house was possibly answered by a circumstance that deep- 
ened the hon-or of the tragedy. It was found that the 
skull of the imfortunate victim was deeply indented — 
fractured without a doubt. Was it by a fall or a blow? 

Had she then been murdered — and by whom? It was 
too horrible and too absurd to conjecture that her husband 
had killed her and then set fire to the house to hide his 
crime. He was devotedly attached to her — and yet — who 
else could have done the deed? Who? Why, some enemy, 
some disaffected ex-workman oE the mines, or some des- 
perate tramp who thought the lady was alone, not know- 
ing of her husband’s return, but aware that her protector 
— Brent, had gone to the city. She had kept no servant 
in the house except an old colored man and his wife, who 
slept in the basement. They, as the neighbors knew, were 
five miles away this Saturday night, attending a colored 
camp meeting, where the old negro was one of the leading 
preachers. This, too, had no doubt been known to the 
tramp, though he had not perhaps been aware of Mr. 
Haggard’s return. 

In the struggle between the man of the house and the 
midnight desperado. Haggard had been stunned and left 
for dead. The wretch had then killed Mrs. Haggard and 
fired the house. Who had saved the cliild? The father, 
probably. He had revived sufficiently to rescue the little 
girl, and had then collapsed through the internal injuries 
he had received. 

This was the drift of conjecture among a group of neigh- 


' i . ,• 


NAK HAGGARD. 


11 


bors, now largely re-enforced, who were collected about 
the smoking ruins in the gray light of early morning. 
Others held the theory that the fire alone had caused the 
calamity. The inmates of the cottage had been awakened 
from sleep by the roaring of the flames. The father had 
caught up his child, and the mother following, blinded and 
stifled by smoke, had fallen, probably down-stairs, and re- 
ceived an injury in the head that caused her death. ' 

The shock had paralyzed her husband^s reason. 

Others still whispered among themselves the darker ver- 
sion of the midnight tragedy. 

Haggard had come home with his brain unsettled by his 
financial troubles. In a fit of madness or, perhaps, of 
jealous anger against his wife, he had killed her, and then, 
with the instinctive cunning of the maniac, had set fire to 
the house. 

Brent, who . came about ten o^clock, while the inquest 
was being held, scoffed at this solution of the mystery. He 
was sure Haggard would never have laid a hurtful finger 
on his wife, crazy or sane — he loved her too well. 

Breiit was dreadfully shocked and agitated. Though he 
was a strongly built giant of a man, with an eye full of 
fiery power and restless energy, he trembled when they led 
him to the blackened remains of his friend^s beautiful wife. 
He would not look at her. 

He turned quickly away. A question was put to him — 
he could not speak in reply to it; the muscles about his 
mouth were jerking, as could be seen by the movement of 
his thick mustache. 

He was pressed to say what he believed to be the most 
rea.sonable conje cture concerning the mysterious affair. 

He only shook his head. At last he said: 

‘‘ It is strange. It passes my comprehension. ’’ 

Then he sunk his head on his hands again and looked 
like one stricken. 


12 


JfAK HAGGARD. 


Brent takes it hard/’ said a by-stander. “ He 
thought a lot of both of them.” 

The wife in particular/’ spoke up the high treble voice 
of Miss Brooks, the gossip of the neighborhood. The sig- 
nificance in her tone was understood by those around him. 

Haggard Was still in the miner’s cabin. He seemed to 
become more paralyzed every moment. The neighborhood 
physician had examined him, and reported that he found 
no injury. There might be an internal hurt, but his opin- 
ion was that the young Englishman had suffered a para- 
lyzing shock of liis already overstrained brain upon re-> 
alizing that his wife was dead and seeing his home in 
flames before him. He believed the attack would be fatal. 
The coma would presently react into brain fever and de- 
lirium. 

We will see if medical skill can not help him,” said 
Stephen Brent, rousing from his silent and motionless atti- 
tude. I will take him right away to the city. My 
buggy is here. I’ll get him to the station in time for the 
noon train.” 

He shook off the stunned feeling that had seemed to 
make him inert, and showed his usual quiet though taci- 
turn energy in getting his stricken friend to the station. 

Before the burial of his wife had taken place, the uncon- 
scious husband was being borne away to seek more skillful 
aid than this country neighborhood afforded. 

He’ll never come back,” uttered the country doctor, 
piqued at losing a case. ‘‘ The journey will destroy his 
one small chance of recovery. He’ll be a dead man within 
a week. He’ll never come to his reason enough to tell how 
last night’s work came about.” 

The prediction was verified, in part, ten days later by 
the return of Brent alone to the neighborhood. He told 
of Haggard’s death. He had died of brain fever produced 
by a mental shock. He had, however, recovered conscious- 
ness a few hours before his death. He would tell nothing 


HAGGAED. 


13 


about the fire or the cause of his wife’s death; but he was 
conscious that his own end was at hand, and he had signi- 
fied his wish to leave his child in Brent^s charge, with the 
remnant of his shattered fortune in trust for her. A paper 
to this effect had been drawn up, and he had allied his 
name to it with a last effort of his fast-expiring strength. 

The only heritage of the child was the mine with the 
lost gold vein, and the thousand acres of wild land that lay 
around it. 

The child had been taken away by the Widow Calvert 
to her own home after the funeral of the mother. No more 
pitiful sight had ever been seen in that neighborhood than 
the desolate little creature presented on the dismal after- 
noon when her mother was buried in the dreary country 
grave-yard. Still in her night-gown — her only garment — 
and wrapped in the widow’s black cloak, with its hood 
drawn over her brown curls, her little white face looked 
out with a bewildered, frightened wistfulriess in its wide, 
dark eyes-and tremulous mouth. She did not comprehend 
the extent of her desolation. She had seen her mother’s 
blackened corpse drawn from the ruins of her home and 
seen her father look at it with the indifference of uncon- 
sciousness. But she could not understand that the black, 
shapeless form was her beautiful young mother — that she 
would soon be fatherless, as she was motherless, in a 
strange land, without kindred or fortune. She shivered 
with a vague horror, and clung to the kind-hearted widow. 

What was to be done with her? The neighbors were 
poor, and had their share of olive branches. None of them 
felt able to burden themselves with another child. 

The widow stood in fear of Eachel’s tongue, but she 
could not abandon the little one who seemed to look upon 
her as her only- friend. She put the child before her on 
the bony brown mare, and took her with her to her little 
home on the hill-side. Miss Rachel was wroth. 

‘‘ YouTl have that puny brat on your hands for good,” 


14 


NAN HAGGARD. 


she declared. She’ll always be twice the trouble she’s 
worth. They’re never any account to work — the children 
of that sort of stuck-up people.” 

A week later Stephen Brent rode up to the Calvert cot- 
tage and spoke to The widow at the gate. The child’s 
father was dead, he said. He had left a will, making him 
her guardian and executor of the estate, such as it was. 

‘‘ I’ve no real home to take her to, Mrs. Calvert,” he 
said, and nobody to look after her. I wish you would 
keep her until I can see what else may be done for her. 
I’ll pay you for her board every quarter. You can teach 
her to work and help you about the house.” 

‘‘I’ll keep her,” the widow agreed, after a short hesita- 
tion. “ Eachel will be mad, but Til tell her she may have 
the board-money; maybe that will pacify her, I hate to 
give the dear little thing up, that’s the truth. She takes 
hold of a body’s heart with her pitiful little ways; and she 
’pears to take to me. Wouldn’t you like to see her? 
She’s dreadful down-hearted still, grievin’ after her mar 
and par. You’ll seem like a friend to her, she’s seen you 
at her home so much. I’ll fetch her out.” 

“ No, no; not now. I can’t see her now. I haven’t 
time,” he exclaimed, hastily. “I’m on my way to the 
mines. I want to have the machinery appraised. Every- 
thing will have to be sold to pay Haggard’s debts. I must 
do the best I can to save something for the child.” 

“ That’s right. It’s due for old friendship’s sake. Poor 
man! He seemed such a nice man, too. And such a 
lovely little critter as his wife was. My! but it was a 
. dreadful night’s work that. You ain’t found out anything 
about how it was done, or Who was at the bottom of it?” 

“ No, it’s all dark. It was the work of tramps, prob- 
ably; but it will never be known for a certainty.” 

“Yes, it will; wickedness always comes to light soon or 
late. That night’s black work is sure to be found out, 
mark my words.” 


ITAK HACtGAUD. 


15 


Let us hope you may be a true prophet,^^ Brent 
said cutting the colloquy short by wheeling his horse^s 
head. 

With a brief good-morning he rode away in the direc- 
tion of the mines. 

The widow looked after him^ shaking her head, as she 
said to herself: 

“He wouldn’t see the child. The little thing is the 
born image of her mother, and I s’pose he couldn’t stand 
to see her. . Susan Brooks will have it he thought more of 
Haggard’s -wife — poor, pretty creetur! — than he’d any 
right to; but law sakes, Susan Brooks is always fermentin’ 
scandals in them shallow brains of hern.” 

A few weeks later it was published in the county paper 
that the Haggard lands would be sold by the administra- 
tor, at public auction, and it was rumored that Brent 
would buy them in, as he had said the estate was greatly 
in debt to him for unpaid services in superintending the 
mine. Before the sale took place, however, Dead Hopes 
Mine was the scene of another tragedy. One night, just 
at the break of day, a loud crash like a burst of thunder 
and a sudden rattling of the window-glass startled those 
living nearest the mines from their beds, and sent them to 
the doors and windows, only to see a clear sky faintly 
streaked with the rosy hue of breaking day. 

The mystery was solved by old Sophy, Brent’s black 
housekeeper, who ran breathless to the nearest neighbor’s, 
crying out that her master had been killed by an explosion 
at the mine. She told that of late he often walked in his 
sleep, going sometimes'd;a-the mine, and sometimes to the 
ruins of the half-burned house of the Haggards. To-night 
he had got up from his bed, after midnight, and gone out. 
He stayed so long her mind misgave her, and she dressed 
and went to the mine herself. She was nearly there when 
the explosion took place. She was thrown flat on her back, 
and as soon as she could get up she went on. She soon 


16 


NAN HAGGAED. 


came upon her master lying lifeless among loose earth and 
fragments of rock. 

She told the story to the neighbors as they hurried to 
the scene of the disaster. 

It was a judgment on him. I knowed it would come; 
I told hini it would she cried, wringing her hands. 

“ A judgment for what? What had he done to be pun- ^ 
ished for?’^ was asked her. 

But she was silent. As to the cause of the explosion she 
could tell nothing; but one of the men — a former work- 
man in the mine — recalled that they had bored a new drill 
for the purpose of blasting just before work on the mine 
was discontinued. It had never been charged. Brent had 
ordered otherwise. In his sleep-walking state he must 
have charged it with powder, set the fuse and ignited it, 
but failed to get beyond reach of hurt before the explosion 
took place. 

He was not dead, however. He was unconscious when 
they picked him up out of the debris, but he came to his 
senses. His leg was broken by a fragment of stone, and 
he had received so terrible a nervous shock that for awhile 
it was thought would prove fatal. He rallied, after a time, 
but he never fully recovered from the hurt and the shock. 
Those who saw him afterward reported that he had a 
strange, anxious look — that he never smiled, and that his 
hand shook as though with palsy. He seemed to have a 
horror of Dead Hopes Mine, for he never returned to it. 
The sale of the property did not take place. The lands re- 
mained waste and uncleared, except for small patches 
about the dwellings of one or two squatters who found 
shelter in the abandoned miners’ huts. 

Some of the land was let at low prices for pasture and 
for the wood and water privileges upon it, but most of it 
remained waste. All the business connected with its let- 
ting was done through an agent. Brent himself had no 
more to do with it. Report said that he had gone to the 


NAN HAGGARD. 17 

North-west, and had there invested in mining lands and 
made a large fortune. 

Lately the country people heard of his return to the 
city, accompanied by a beautiful woman, whom he had 
married not long before. 

He looks powerful old and broken,^’ said the farmer 
who brought the news, alongside his dashing wife, 
though she was a widow, they saj^, with a grown son. She^s 
a beauty, though, and no mistake. 

But he did not come to see nor did he write to his 
youthful ward — the orphan heiress of Dead Hopes Mine. 

' The abandoned mine was now a desolate-looking spot. 
The pits had become reservoirs of stagnant rain-water. 
Nettles and briers overhung them. Wild vines clambered 
over the rotting buildings, and grass grew before the doors 
of the deserted miners’ cabins. Weeds and vines and 
friendly moss hid the black scars of the half-burned Hag- 
gard cottage. Its chimney still stood upright, and part of 
the staij-case was there, muffled in Virginia creeper. 

On wild, stormy nights, when the lightning played 
about tlie ruins, it was said that the form of the murdered 
Anabel Haggard was seen standing at the head of that 
ruined staircase, in her white night-robe. 

‘‘ Her ghost will walk until her murderer is found and 
punished,” said the people. 

But the crime of that night of fire and blood remained 
still a mystery. The widow’s prophecy that light would 
be thrown upon it had not yet come to pass. 

The child -heiress of Dead Hopes Mine was still an in- 
mate of Widow Calvert’s cottage. Brent sent quarterly 
enough money to pay for her board and a few cheap 
clothes. The widow taught her to read the Bible and Bax- 
ter’s “ Saints’ Rest,” and the “ Pictorial History of the 
World.” This comprised her library. She knew all the 
psalms by heart, and nearly everything in the ‘‘ Pictorial 
History.” She had no companions of her own age. The 


18 


NAN HAGGARD. 


widow and her old-maid daughter stayed at home and 
worked hard. The child learned early to help them in the 
garden and the dairy, also to knit and spin. She was fond 
of her foster-mother, and grieved for her heart-brokenly 
when she died. This was when Nan was twelve years old. 
Anabel had been her name — the same as her mother’s — 
but Miss Rachel said it was ‘‘ too fine for a child as had 
nothin’ — not even any kinnery ” — and so she was called 
Nan. 

Nan’s life was harder after the death of her good old 
friend. Miss Rachel had no softness in her composition, 
and no sympathy with the poetical, sensitive feelings of 
the little English waif. She put hard tasks on the child; 
she scolded and found fault with her; called her queer and 
idle and mooning; forbid her to have pets, and ruthlessly 
burned the books — old, battered novels — that were lent to 
the girl by a friend she had lately been so fortunate as to 
find. But through the instrumentality of this friend — an 
old lady living on a dilapidated estate close by — Nan had 
the benefit of a little schooling from the kind-hearted but 
not very competent country teacher. Mrs. De Lacy spoke 
to him about Nan, and he saw the child, and was touched 
by her desolate condition. 

She must have some instruction,” he said. ‘‘ It’s a 
shame to have her grow up without it — and she so bright, 
and the child of gentlefolks. ” 

“ What’s the good of her gentle blood. I’d like to 
know?” snapped Miss Rachel. ‘‘ It don’t put bread in her 
mouth nor clothes on her ,back. She’s got no fortime to 
look to, and there’s no call to be putting high notions in 
her head. She’ll have to work for her living, mortally as 
she hates to do drudgery.” 

‘‘ Her schooling sha’n’t cost her a cent, and you must 
spare her from her work to 'come to school half the year at 
least. It is your duty, Rachel.” 

Miss Rachel muttered something about not thanking 


KAN HAGGARD. 


19 


anybody to come and tell her what her duty was; but the 
quiet voice and steady eyes of Solomon Slow silenced her 
opposition. 

CHAPTER III. 

SWEET SIXTEEN. — NAN GETS A BIRTHDAY-PRESENT THAT 
BRINGS A STORM UPON HER HEAD. 

It wanted an hour to sunset. Nan was coming from 
school along the wood^s path where the shadows lay long 
and cool. 

Her gingham sun-bonnet was pushed back from her 
head, her tin dinner-bucket swung from her hand, as she 
walked beside her teacher — Solomon Slow. 

Professor Slow, the country folks called him. He too 
carried his dinner-bucket; also his “ Davies’ Arithmetic ” 
and his slate. It was his habit to keep ahead of his more 
advanced pupils by working out at night the sums he gave 
them for the next day’s lesson. 

Mr. Slow, a shy, odd old bachelor, lived with his mother 
in the old red house half a mile beyond Miss Rachel Cal- 
vert’s home. 

As they came in sight of the lowly roof that sheltered 
Nan, a fine young dog came bounding down the road to 
meet them. He welcomed Nan boisterously by jumping up 
against her and wagging his bushy tail. Then he took 
the handle of her lunch-basket between his teeth and 
trotted on ahead. * . 

He did this every afternoon, rewarded on reachmg the 
gate by receiving the scraps left from Nan’s lunch, usually 
not very plentiful; for Nan had a healthy appetite, and 

Miss Rachel is an eq?Gnomical provider, ” the professor 
was wont to say, as he added the fragments from his own 
bucket to Bruin’s feast. 

He called it equinomicdl, and he spelled it so. He had 
struggled with his orthography, for his education was lim- 


2Q 


NAN HAGGAPtB. 


ited. His slender pupil trudging there beside him knew 
more than he did, though she was unaware of her superi- 
ority. 

There was never a human being more devoid of self-con- 
sciousness than Nan. Bruin had come up to them just as 
they reached the lower fence of the rambling old orchard. 
A branch of hoary apple-tree overhung the road. Nan 
picked a yellow apple that shone through the leaves and 
tendered it to Mr. Slow. 

‘‘ Name it/"^ he said, looking admiringly at her face 
with the sunset flush upon it. 

Name it?’^ she repeated, in surprise. 

“Yes; isn’t that what the girls do when they give an 
apple?” 

“ Oh, they name it for the sweetheart of the girl they 
give it to, but I thought—” 

“You thought I was too old.” 

“ Not that; I never thought about that, but it would 
seem nonsense to you — naming for sweethearts — it does to 
me.” 

“ You never had a sweetheart. Nan?” 

“ No, indeed. I don’t know any boys but Sam Reed 
and Dick Patterson. They are not nice. They laugh so 
loud and chew tobacco.” 

'"Nan,” said the professor, abruptly, as he turned the 
apple over in his hand, and glanced from it to the girl, 
“ didn’t I hear you say last week that to-day would be 
your birthday?” 

“ Yes; I’m sixteen to-day. I had forgotten about it.” 

“ Sixteen — almost a young lady.” 

“ Am I?” 

She looked down at herself with a quick sense of the 
inappropriateness of the term to the wearer of an up-to- 
the-knees out-grown frock, home-knit stockings and high- 
necked apron. 

“ You had forgotten about your birthday? Was there 


KAK HAGGARD. SI 

nobody to remind you of it? Has nobody given you a 
birthday-present?’ ’ 

Nobody at all. Who should give me a present? I 
never had one in my life.’^ 

Who, indeed, was to make gifts to Nan Haggard, who 
had no kith or kin and no friend but old Mrs. He Lacy, 
who was too poor to give presents? 

At school she was one apart. She was made to feel that 
she was not like other girls — she a ‘‘ furriner,” as they 
called her, with the shadow of a tragedy on her child-life, 
a dependent on old Miss Eachel whom nobody liked. She 
was quoted a splendid hand to help one with a composition 
or a parsing lesson, but she was queer. She was given to 
consorting with children younger than herself, going gyp- 
sying with them down the creek, wading for mussel shells 
and climbing trees just to peep into birds’ nests, or get a 
cluster of vine blossoms*, or else poring over old books all 
recess; while the other girls talked of their sweethearts or 
their new clothes, she, sitting off by herself in the low 
branches of a bushy pine-tree, read the old romances of 
brave knights and the fair stately ladies they worshiped 
and fought for. She made for herself a little dream world, 
in which these brave and beautiful personages figured. 
They were more real to her than the people about her. 

For Nan had grown up a shy, solitary child, sensitive to 
the fact that the shadow of that early tragedy fell over her, 
isolating her from the little world of commonplace people 
about her. 

She often caught meaning glances directed to her, and 
overheard whispers referring to the calamity that had 
made her an orphan. She gathered enough to know that 
her father was believed to have been possessed by some 
mad or evil spirit, and that a touch of it might rest upon 
her — to break out suddenly into something dreadful. 

She’s an awful queer sort of girl,” was what she often 
Feard. It made her draw yet more closely within herself. 


22 


NAN HAGGARD. 


The professor, still fingering the apple, looked as though 
struggling to get something out. It came at last. 

I remembered your birthday. Nan. I have a little 
present for you, if you will accept it.’^ 

He drew it out of his pocket — a pretty little blue and 
gold volume — and gave it to her. 

“Oh, it is Praed’s poems — just what I wanted! Mrs. 
He Lacy knows one of them by heart. 

She pushed the sun-bonnet back on her neck, and eag- 
erly turned the pages of the little book. 

“How pretty it is! And did you get it just for me? 
Did you think that much of me?^’ 

“ I think more of you than any pupil in my school. 
Nan. I—’’ 

A rustling among the thick apple-boughs inside the 
orchard fence checked his speech. Besides, he saw that 
Nan was too much absorbed in her book to appreciate his 
eloquence. 

They walked slowly into the house, standing at the gate 
a moment to give Bruin his reward for carrying the bucket. 

The sunset was bright on Nan’s bare head. The breeze 
blew her hair into a hundred little plumy curls, her 
cheeks were softly flushed, her long lashes rested darkly 
upon their delicate pink cheeks as she stooped to pat the 
dog. The professor thought it was a pretty sight, and he 
was struggling with an unwonted compliment when a shrill 
voice from the piazza called out: 

“Nan, come straight in and get to strainin’ that milk. 
What do you mean a-foolin’ away your time, dwardlin’ 
along as if you had nothin’ to do and was worth a fort- 
une!” 

It was Miss Rachel’s voice. She stood in the porch 
eying the two loiterers at the gate with superior scorn. 
The professor colored red, and with a hasty bow walked 
on. Nan went into the house, closing the book with a 


HAK HAGGARD. 23 

sigh, and prepared to strain the milk and set the table for 
supper. 

Miss Rachel, kneading the dough for biscuit at the table 
near her, vented her ill humor in further scolding. 

A full half hour behind your time, as usual, along 
a-d ward ling on the way, gabbling and flirting at the fence 
corners.’’ 

Flirting?” exclaimed ISTan, looking up from the milk- 
pan. ‘‘ What do you mean. Miss Rachel?” 

‘‘ Oh, you know very well. Miss Innocence. I heard it 
all. I "was behind the apple-tree pickin’ raspberries. You 
was too much taken up to see me. I heard all that stuff 
about namin’ apples and sweethearts. I wanted to box 
your ears, and his too.” 

She gave a vicious dab at the dough as though it were 
the ears in question. 

‘‘ ‘ There’s no fool like an old fool,’ but it’s flirty young 
upstarts that set ’em to makin’ fools of themselves. I 
heard your palaverin’. ‘ Professor, did you get that 
beautiful book for me? ' There’s nobody to give me pres- 
ents.’ Who’s give you the bread you’ve eat, and the 
clothes you’ve wore the last two years, I’d like to know? 
What’s a triflin’ book to that? Some trash like the books 
that old De Lacy crank gives you, to stuff your head with 
love nonsense before you are knee-high to a goose. If 
that book he giv’ you is like I think it is, a mess about 
love and fine doin’s above your station. I’ll put it in the 
stove to cook these here biscuit with — that’s what I’ll do. 
Hand it here — let me look at it.” 

She wrung her hands out of the dougli, wiped them on 
her apron, and reached out to get the book where it lay on 
the end of Nan’s milking-table. The girl gave a spring 
and caught of the volume. 

‘‘ You sha’n’t burn it!” she cried. You sha’n’t burn 
the only present I ever had in my life.” 


24 


NAK HAGGARD. 


‘‘ 1*11 burn it, if I see a word of love nonsense in it. 
Your head’s stuffed with that enough already.” 

Of course there was love in it. Who ever heard of poems 
without love in them — soul of all poetry? Nan had read 
an exquisite little love lyric as she walked from the orchard 
to the gate. She remembered it and clutched the book as 
tightly as she could. Miss Eachel did her best to wrench 
it from her. 

In the struggle a milk-pan was upset and a saucer 
broken. Miss Eachel loosed her hold on the book to slap 
Nan 'again and again, till the girl’s pale cheeks were aflame 
and the tears of pain stood in her eyes, Then she pushed 
her upstairs, and shut her into a little back shed-room, 
locking the door. 

Nan, left alone, clinched her hands and sobbed in a 
stormy j^assion of resentment for awhile. Then she cooled 
down and took her seat in the low window opening on the 
shed roof. 

Her cat came walking up the sloping roof, hunting for 
her, climbed into her lap, and rubbing herself against her 
mistress, purred her sympathy. 

Nan hugged her dumb friend in her arms, and began to 
cry again, more softly, talking all the while to her dumb 
friend. 

‘‘ Oh, Kitty! was there ever such a miserable girl as I 
am in the world? I wish I were dead and couldn’t feel 
any more. I’ve got to be a slave all my life to a pross old 
woman that won’t be pleased no matter what I do. I have 
no peace of my life. I’ve ^ot no father, no mother, no 
friends, only you, my Kitty, and Bruin. Nobody but 
you,” she went on, making a half-sobbing refrain of the 
words till her tears once more ceased, and she went on : 

Yes; I have got a friend. I have two good friends— 
Mr. Slow and Mrs. De Lady. , How good and funny Mrs. 
De Lacy is! I have had some nice times with her, up in 
her lumber-room with that barrel of old books. I wish I 


ifAN HAGGAIli). 25 

could see her to-night. Fd ask her what I must do. I 
can’t, I won’t stay here all my life; I’ll run away and 
join the gypsies, or do something. ^ Mrs. De Lacy inight 
tell me what? Or she could write to Mr. Brent and find 
out about him. Is he dead, I wonder? Miss Rachel says 
he hasn’t sent any money for me in two years, and I’m 
here eating the bread of dependence. Oh! such bitter 
bread as it is! I wish I could see Mrs. De Lacy. If I 
could get out of here I’d go to see her this pretty moon- 
light night. It would be just a nice run through the woods 
and across the field. Why, I can get out of here just as 
easy as not. I can slide down this shed and swing myself 
to the ground by a limb of the mulberry-tree. I’ll do it, 
to6, and I’ll go by the guinea’s nest — it’s iny guinea, old 
Mrs. Slow gave her to me — and carry my apron full of 
eggs to Mrs. De Lacy. She’ll be glad to get them. Come, 
Kitty; now for a slide.” 

She gathered her short frock close about her, and with 
Kitty in her lap she slid down the shed, caught a limb of 
the tough mulberry-tree, and swung herself to the ground. 

She sped away across the field, followed by Kitty leap- 
ing after her through the grass like a rabbit* 


CHAPTER IV. 

A VISIT nY MOONLIGHT.— AK UNEXPECTED AEEIYAL. 

Mes. De Lacy’s old house looked ghostly in the moon- 
light as Nan pushed open the big gate that sagged and 
grated on its one rusty hinge. 

She went up the weedy, grassy walk that had once been 
shining with white gravel. The untrimmed trees met over- 
head, and in one of them a screech-owl was utteling his 
dismal wail. 

A savage watch-dog flew at the intruder with a fierce 
bark which changed to a whimper of welcome the minute 
he saw it was Nan. He sniffed in a friendly way at her 


^6 


NAN HAC4GARD. 


outstretched hand, and only wagged his tail contemptuously 
at Kitty’s elevated back. 

The basement, built of brick and crumbling plaster, 
was covered with ivy. Through its arches came the sound 
of a fiddle in a back room, played by Uncle Mose, who, 
with his wife, Aunt Milly, and their boy Jake were now 
the only slaves remaining to the mistress of the once proud 
domain. They worked her garden and corn patch. The 
remainder of her w^orn-out land was rented to tenants on 
shares, her share being just enough to keep her and her 
few retainers, the three negroes, a pair of old horses, 
blooded, but battered, that had drawn her coach in the 
days when she rode in it beside her handsome, courtly hus- 
band. 

The judge looked and felt like a prince. He dispensed, 
too, a princely hospitality, lived up to his income, and be- 
yond it in his later years, and dying suddenly, left security 
debts and mortgages that swept the large Quarter ” 
clear of slave tenants. His widow had paid every debt, 
but it left her a pauper. 

Nan bounded up the broad steps and made her way to 
Mrs. He Lacy’s room. The old lady was sitting at a small 
table eating her frugal supper by the light of a tallow can- 
dle and the moon that came through a patched real lace 
curtain. The supper consisted of sugared blackberries in 
a silver dish, bread and butter, and tea in a cup of delicate 
china. These, together with an additional cup and saucer, 
two silver forks and spoons and a pair of silver sugar, 
tongs, were relics left from the fine table service over 
which this grand dame used to preside in better days. 

She looked the grand dame still — with her fine pale 
skin, black eyes and dark brows and snow-white hair in 
puffs above her forehead. She always dressed for her sim- 
ple and solitary evening meal. She put on her much- 
worn black Turkish satin, with the carefully mended ruffies 
of real lace at throat and wrists. She spread the small 


KAK HAGGARD. 

table with a damask-cloth, and laid a delicate napkin be- 
side her plate. 

Why, Nan Haggard, is that you?’’ she exclaimed, as 
the girl entered out of . breath. “ What do you mean by 
coming down like a wolf in the fold upon a quiet old sheep 
like me? Have you had your supper? Why child,” she 
went on as Nan came within the circle of the candle illu- 
mination, you have been crying! What is the matter?” 

“ Nothing; only Miss Eachel abused me and slapped me 
and locked me up because I^thanked the professor for giv- 
ing mC a book on my birthday. And I can’t live with her 
any more. She hates me worse every day, and she be- 
grudges what I eat and wear. I won’t be dependent on 
her. 1 must earn my own living, but I don’t know where 
to go or what to do. I’m so miserable. There’s nobody 
to care what becomes of me. I think I’d better die, and 
be out of the way. ’ ’ 

Sobbing stormily. Nan threw herself down by Mrs. De 
Lacy and buried her face in the folds of the well-preserved 
satin. 

The dear old lady let the girl have her cry out. She 
only smoothed her tumbled curls with her delicate wrinkled 
hand and patted her shoulder. 

When the tempest of sobs had passed, she said gently: 

Try not to look at the dark side. Nan. That is the 
fault of young eyes. They see all the gloom— all the diffi- 
culties. Now I see plenty of bright possibilities ahead for 
- little Nan Haggard. She is just sixteen to-day. She has 
a good heart and a bright head. She isn’t one of the 
golden-haired angels the novel-writers picture, but she has 
plenty of good looks, and an amiable nature, with just a 
wholesome spice of temper. The world is wide. There 
is room for you in it. Nan, outside Miss Rachel’s cottage. 
You can’t get along with her. Nobody ever did. She is 
envious and ill-tempered. I can explain her outburst this 
evening. She was jealous of you.” 


^8 


HAGGARD. 


‘‘ Of me — Mrs. De Lacy!’^ 

‘‘ Yes; of the professor^s liking for you. They were 
engaged when they were young. Her bitter temper broke 
up the relation, but she still cherishes a kind of dog-in- 
tlie-manger regard for him. She refuses to give up her 
will to him or any man, but she gets furious if he shows a 
liking for any other female. He is afraid of her— this is 
why he has never married. His little act of kindness to 
you to-day aroused her jealousy.-” 

“ She never liked me. She will hate me after this. I 
can’t take my bread from her grudging hand a day 
longer.” 

“ You ought not to stay with her; but you are not de- 
pendent on her. Nan Haggard, you are not dependent on 
anybody. You have property enough to support you.” 

‘‘ I, Mrs. De Lacy? What have I? A few hundred 
acres of rocky land! Miss Rachel says it is not worth the 
taxes paid on it. ” 

It isnT, eh? Where does she pasture her sheeiD and 
cows? On Haggard Range. Where does she get the tim- 
ber she sells to' the saw-mills? From Haggard’s Hum- 
mock. I suppose Brent permits her to do this in return 
for your board. It is enough board you pay, I should say. 
WHiere is your guardian? Do you never hear from him?” 

Never. I have never seen him since I was a little 
child. We have not heard from his agent in two years. 
Miss Rachel says he hasn’t sent any money to pay for my 
schooling.” 

A pretty guardian he is. Why doesn’t he come down 
here and see to your interests, do something with your 
property, clear the land, repair the house?” 

What, Mrs. De Lacy, that half-burned ruin? Wlio 
would live there? They all say it is haunted. Seeley de- 
clares she saw my mother’s spirit all in white coming down 
the old rotten stairs. I don’t believe her. If mother’s 
spirit could come back it would come to me. She would 


NAN HAGGARD. 


29 


come and take me, as I have prayed her to so many times. 
Why was I spared that night? Why did not the fire or 
the murderer kill me too? It would have been better, so 
much better!” 

‘‘ Hush, Nan, that is sinful. You were spared for some 
good purpose. I feel it. 'Your life, so^ rough now, will 
come smooth at last. There, I have told your fortune. I 
have moods of soothsaying sometimes. Turn round and 
thank me for it. ” 

Nan turned from the window, a smile lighting her tears, 
and kissed the old lady’s cheek. 

‘‘ Good luck is not for me,” she said. 

‘‘ How do you know but the lost gold vein maybe found 
some fine day, and Dead Hopes Mine be Bright Hopes 
again?” 

‘‘ I dreamed so once,” said the girl. I thought I was 
looking down one of those black, yawning pits, where my 
poor father buried his hopes, and all of a sudden a glitter 
of gold dazzled my eyes. A fountain of gold seemed to 
spring from the bottom of the pit.” 

‘‘It may prove a true dream. The mine has never been 
touched since that accident happened to Brent. They say 
he was never himself afterward — never had any of his old 
energy. But he has made money by speculating. He is 
counted rich, and lately he has married a handsome widow 
with one son, so I have heard. Of course she married him 
for his money. He is a forbidding-looking man. She 
was, no doubt, poor as a church mouse. I wish she may 
rouse him up to some action in your case. His neglect of 
you is shameful. I have determined to write to him my- 
self and call him to a sense of his duty toward you. You 
deserve a better fate than to be brought up in this out-of- 
the-way place as Miss Rachel’s drudge. I would not talk 
in this way to you if there was nothing better for you. 
Nan, I would not make you more discontented with your 


30 


NA2Sr HAGGARD. 


lot if it was inevitable. But I know that things should 
change for you, and if — ’’ 

A loud noise below interrupted Mrs. De Lacy — the 
barking of a dog mingled with exclamations in African 
dialect. 

linker Mose, linker Mose, call off youi’ dog!^^ 

‘‘It is Seeley’s voice,” Nan said. “ Miss Rachel has 
sent her to find me and take me back. I have half a 
mind not to go.” 

She stood with fluttering color listening as Seeley’s heavy 
shoes clattered up the steps, and her loud knock on the 
door was followed by her advent — a tall, loosely strung 
mulatto woman, with a round cocoa-nut head and a face 
alive with child-like good humor. 

“Here you is,” she said, grinning when she caught 
sight of Nan. “ Knowed I’d find you here, ’case my little 
dog track you.' Persimmons kin track a human same as a 
’possum. Miss Rachel done sent for you to come home. 
Nan, ’case — ” 

“ Because she wants to lock me U23 again and take out 
her spite and ill-humor on me,” said the girl, with flash- 
ing eyes. 

“ Law sakes, child, no! She ain’t gwine to do dat now. 
She ain’t gwine to have no spit-fire ways, ’case your 
guardeen’s done come.” 

“ My guardian — Mr. Brent?” 

“Not him zactly, but his wife — his new wife — mighty 
fine styly woman she is, and her son, a sumptious-looking 
young fellow, I tell you, wid de shiniest boots and curly 
mustashus. Dey ax about you powerful pleasant, and Miss 
Rachel telled ’em you’se gone to see your French teacher 
over de hill. Dey come to take you off wid ’em and send 
you to school or car’ you to travel, and dey fetch a big 
trunk full er presents for you.” 

Nan’s eyes grew wide with surprise. 

“ What can this mean, I wonder? Tliey seem to have 


KAN HAGGARD. 


31 


waked up quite suddenly to a knowledge of niy existence/^ 
she said, laughing nervously, as she shook out her dress 
and smoothed her tumbled curls with trembling fingers. 

‘‘ What does it mean, indeed echoed Mrs. De Lacy. 

I don’t understand this new departure. It is the work 
of the wife, I suppose. Is it through kindness of heart — a 
sense of justice or — what?” 

It can’t be from any but a good motive. There’s no 
benefit to come to them from bothering about me,” Nan 
said. “ I suppose I must hurry back and see what new 
fate is opening for me. Isn’t it funny the change should 
come to-night, just as I was praying that a change would 
come into my life. So here it . is. ‘ When things are at 
the worst, they mend,’ says the old saw. Good-night, 
dearest Mrs. De Lacy. I’ll run over and tell you every- 
thing in the morning and make your coffee for you.” 

‘ When things are at the worst, they mend.’ I winder 
if this chaAge will mend things for you, poor child,’’ 
thought Mrs. De Lacy, as she stood at her window and 
watched in the moonlight Nan’s little figure hurrying 
down the hill with quick, short steps, while the gaunt 
Seeley strode beside her. 

I don’t at all understand this sudden movement on 
the part of a guardian that has seemed to forget his charge 
so long. There is some mystery behind it. I hope it por- 
tends no harm to Nan.” 


CHAPTER V. 

MOTHER AKD SOK. 

Nak and her dusky companion walked rapidly through 
the belt of woods that lay between Mrs. De Lacy’s half- 
ruined old home and Miss Rachel’s cottage. 

They reached the gate, and then Nan saw, to her confu- 
sion, that the two grand strangers and Miss Rachel were 
out on the front porch. No chance now to slip into her 


82 


KAK HAGGARD. 


room and put on her best frock — a little brown merino 
gown made from the widow’s Sunday dress. She must ad- 
vance under fire of these strange^ critical eyes^ with the 
bright summer moonlight shining full upon her, in the 
short calico frock, the neck-apron, the clumsy shoes. 

There was no help for it. They had heard the click of 
the gate; they had seen her. That young man standing 
on the top step, leaning against the pillar of the porch, 
was looking straight at her. 

How stylish and handsome he looked to Nan’s unsophis- 
ticated eyes! She felt her cheeks burning as she glanced 
at him, and saw that he was measuring her from head to 
foot as she came down the walk with the cat in her arms. 
She was sure his mustached lip curled disdainfully. 

That contemptuous look gave her courage. She threw 
up her head and walked on resolutely but <svith burning 
cheeks. 

Down the steps skipped a slender girlish figure all in 
light gray. 

‘‘Here she comes at last,” cried a silvery voice. 
“ Comes out of the woods like a nymph or a fairy. What 
a brave girl!” 

Two plump arms were thrown about her> a pair of per- 
fumed lips pressed her cheek. 

“ I’m glad to see you, my dear. I have heard your story 
from your guardian, my husband, and I feel deeply inter- 
ested in you. This is my son. . He has been so anxious to 
see you.” 

“ My son ” did not look as though he had been con- 
sumed by anxiety. He boWed his face wearing its indiffer- 
ent expression. 

“ Are you Mrs. Brent, my guardian’s wife?” Nan asked 
in amazement. It seemed impossible that this girlish, 
graceful lady could be the mother of the mustached and 
sulky-looking young man. 

“Yes, I am Mrs. Brent. My son’s name is Hoyt-^ 


NAK HAGGARD. 


33 


E(»miincl Hoyt. Such a tall fellow. You wouldn’t sus- 
pect me of being his mother, would you? I assure you he 
quite looks down upon me.” 

She had a fairy-like figure and a shapely head covered 
with wavy yellow hair. Her small, regular features, peach- 
bloom skin and penciled brows made her seem to the eyes 
of Nan, who knew none of the mysteries of making- up, 
hardly twenty- five. 

‘‘ Have you had dinner — supper you call it here?” she 
asked of Nan. ‘‘ I am afraid you haven’t. We came 
just as Miss Rachel was about to sit down to the table all 
alone. We enjoyed the hot biscuit and butter and jam. 
Miss Rachel is a splendid cook.” 

She glanced smilingly at Miss Rachel, who did not smile 
in return, but sat bolt upright in her chair, her face sa3dng 
that she was not to be won over by any flattery on the part 
of a yellow-haired woman she didn’t approve of. 

Mrs. Brent did not seem to notice her ungraciousness. 
She talked on to Nan. 

‘‘Will you sit here in the moonlight, or shall we go to 
your room and have a little talk all to ourselves? I must 
ask you to pack your things to-night, or early in the morn- 
ing. We must leave her quite early in order to catch the 
eight-o’clock train to the city. Mr. Brent will be looking 
for us to-morrow afternoon. You are to go home with us, 
you know — that is, if you want to. Don’t you? Wouldn’t 
you like to have a change — to see more of the world?” 

“ I would indeed,” Nan answered, fervently. 

“ She’s ready for anything new, you may be sure,” in- 
terposed Miss Rachel. “ She’s ready to bounce off with 
the first one that beckons to her, with no thanks to the 
ones that’s took care of her and w^aited on her all her life. 
There ain’t no gratitude in some folks.” 

Nan wondered what she had to be grateful to Miss 
Rachel for. Mrs. Brent smiled understandingly, and gave 


34 


KAK HAGGARD. 


the girFs hand a little s^^mpathetic squeeze as it lay in her 
soft palm. 

“ How good, how charming she is!’^ thought Nan. 
“ She is like the lovely women I have read about.’’ 

She was emboldened to ask what she was to do in the 
city — was she to go to school? 

‘‘ Oh, I think so,” replied the lady. Or you will have 
masters to come to the house, perhaps. Your guardian 
will decide this. He will do what he can for you. His 
health had been bad for years, and his business is a good 
deal involved, and demands close attention. It is because 
of his health and those business troubles that he has neg- 
lected you. He is sorry this happened so. He told me 
about you, and I was at once interested.” 

It was you who brought me to his mind? I am sure I 
have you to thank for it,” Nan said, with a grateful look. 

She shook her head half in deprecation. 

A man has so many things to think about; he forgets 
a duty until it presses itself on him. So you will be ready 
to go in the morning? Come, now, and I’ll help you pack 
your things.” 

I — I don’t think I’ll need any helj),” Nan stammered. 
She had a swift vision of her things ” — these few shabby 
outgrown garments that she could put in a corner of the 
old hair trimk. She met Mrs. Brent’s questioning eyes, 
and added, a little bitterly: ‘‘ A short horse, they" say, is 
soon curried. My horse is very short. ” 

Ah! you mean you have few clothes to pack. That is 
well enough. We can get everything new when we are in 
the city. I have brought some things I hope may fit 
you. Let us go in and try them on. They are in the 
front room here. You are to occupy that room to-night 
with me; and Edmund is to desecrate your little upstairs 
sanctum with his masculine presence. It is Miss Rachel’s 
arrangement. Come,” 


KAK HAGGARD. 35 

She rose, holding Nan’s hand, and went into the hall. 
Her son caught her arm as she passed him. 

I’ll speak to you presently, Edmund,” she said. 

I want to speak to you noio,” he retorted, ungra- 
ciously. 

His mother stopped. 

“ Go in and light the lamp, my dear. I must see what 
this spoiled boy wants of me,” she said to Nan. 

Miss Rachel had gone inside. The mother and son were 
alone. Instantly her smiling, youthful look was gone. 
Her face in the moonlight looked hard and stern. 

Well?” she said, standing before her son. 

He assumed an injured air. 

“ It is not well,” he answered, sullenly. Your cake 
is all dough as far as I am concerned. If you think I am 
going to marry the gawky little country chit, you make a 
big mistake, I can tell you. ” 

‘‘She is neither ugly nor gawky. It^is her shabby 
clothes and her shyness — not being used to company. She 
has in her the making of a pretty, stylish — ” 

“ Pretty and stylish — the deuce! She is a greeny and a 
gawk, I say. The boys would guy me if I were fool enough 
to marry that little ninny. She doesn’t know a thing 
about the ways and manners of the world.” 

His mother’s lip curved contemptuously. 

“ And if she did know anything about the world, would 
she marry you, do you suppose— a drunkard, a half 
idiot, a — ” 

“ Hush your abuse of me, or I’ll tell the girl what a 
job you are tryiiTg to put up on her. I’ll call her and tell 
ht5r this minute. ’ ’ 

“ Do, if you dare!” cried Selma Brent, catching his arm 
in the grij) of her slender, sinewy fingers. “ If you breathe 
one word of such a thing to the girl, or if you refuse to 
obey my wish about her, you shall not only never have an- 


36 


HAGGARD. 


other cent from me, but I will have you put in an asylum 
and treated to a strait- Jacket. Do you hear?’^ 

Her dark-blue eyes contracted into steely points that 
seemed to pierce him. 

He drew back. His own eyes drooped, his face paled. 

Hang it! a fellow can^t Joke with you,^^ he said, sul- 
lenly. “ The girTs good enough, I reckon — too good for 
me, I wish her better luck than to have me for a hus- 
band. AVhy can’t you let us be?” 

“I have told you that you must marry her — mu8t, I 
sa}' — you understand?” 

I’d like to know why I’ve got to make a sacrifice of 
myself for an ugly little thing with not a dollar to her 
name.” 

I have plans that hang on this marriage — plans for 
^ your good as well as mine. You will ruin yourself and 
me by your obstinacy. You will be good and sensible. 
Here, sit down and smoke your cigar. Don’t fall asleep. 
I will call you presently. I will show you a girl that loill 
please you, since you don’t like poor little Nan.” 

‘‘Stop!” he called out as she turned from him. 
“ Where’s the whisky? You said — ” 

“ I said you should have the bottle to-night if you 
pleased me. I will keep my word. You shall have it — 
but not now. You must keep cool awhile. I will call 
you presently.” 

“ And give me the bottle?” 

“ Yes,” she said, frowning in impatient contempt, “ if 
you do as I want you to.” 


CHAPTER VI. 

CINDERELLA AND HER GODMOTHER. 

Mrs. Brent went into the room where Nan was wait- 
ing for her. The girl had seized upon a new magazine 
that lay on the table beside Mrs. Brent’s fan and travel- 


IfAN HAGGARD. 


37 

ing-bag, and was hungrily devouring its pages. The lady 
glided to her side and laid her hand caressingly on the 
girTs bent head. 

‘‘Oh — pardon meP^ Nan cried, jumping up, ashamed 
of her preoccupation. ‘‘It is the first new magazine I 
have seen in so long a time.'’’ 

“ Poor child — I fancy an3dhing new is a rarity here. 
Everything and everybody looks as old as the ark — except 
you — and even your face looks a deal too grave. Speaking 
of new things, have you looked at your new trunk?” 

“ Is that trunk for me? So fine, so largo! I have noth- 
ing to fill it with, dear Mrs. Brent.” 

“We will contrive to fill it, never fear. It is not empty 
now. See here.” 

She threw back the lid of the handsome trunk. It was 
lined with ruby satin, and there were compartments for a 
bonnet, laces, gloves, handkerchiefs, and ribbons. She 
lifted out the tray of the trunk and set it on the floor. She 
took out from the lower part a stylish light-brown ulster, 
then a tailor-made costume of leaf -brown serge, the jacket 
and skirt stitched and braided. 

“lam crazy to see how they fit,” she said. 

“ Try them on now — that is a dear. ” 

“ Oh, your dresses are too long and large for me,” Nan 
said, looking at the pretty suit admiringly. 

“ Only let’s try. Take off your dress. Let me help 
you. Why, you have no corset on. Never wore one? 
Child, child, how you have been neglected! What a Mrs. 
Noah that old maid is! Well, here is a corset, a Paris- 
made one, light and elastic. Lucky I thought of it. Let 
me put it on you. Feels queer, does it? Oh, you’ll get 
used to it. You’ll get to like being squeezed. See how 
nicely your figure looks already, del ! What lovely arms 
and shouldei*s, and what a beautiful bust the little one 
has! Just see me kissing these dimples as though I were a 
lover. Why, how she is blushing! a perfect tide of rose 


/ 


38 


KAN HAGGARD. 


color? Did no one ever tell you before you had pretty 
shoulders, clierie 

“ Never. No one has ever seen them since I was a lit- 
tle child/’ Nan said, shrinking from the touch of Mrs. 
Brent’s plump fingers upon her bare flesh. 

The lady laughed merrily. 

Don’t you know that in society we don’t cover up this 
part of our charms? Dear, no! They are shown to the 
fullest advantage, even when they are nothing to boast of. 
But I’ll take pity on your blushes. So we’ll hurry with 
the dress. See, the skirt is not a bit too long — just comes 
to your ankles. It is quite time you discarded the ridicu- 
lously short frocks Miss Rachel has kept you in. This 
one is just right. Now for the jacket. See, it fits! it 
does fit — lo triwnphe ! If I had bet with you, I would 
have won. You are wondering now how I came to guess 
your size.” 

Mrs. Brent, these are surely not for me?” 

“ Certainly they are. Whom else did you suppose they 
were for? I saw a man from your neighborhood — some- 
body who had business with Mr. Brent — and he told me 
you were about the size of my maid, Zeline, only not so 
tall, and that you wore short dresses. I immediately knew 
it was the short frocks that made you seem smaller, and I 
had these things fitted on Zeline at a venture. And they 
are just right. I am lucky always — in small ventures. I 
hope I shall be in big ones — if I ever undertake them. 
Now come and stand here where you can see yourself in 
this narrow, old-fashioned looking-glass. Why does Miss 
Rachel cover it up with yellow tarletan? Is it to make 
you think yourself a jaundiced fright? I’ll take the lib- 
erty of removing it. Now look at your figure. Would you 
know yourself if you didn’t see your face?” 

‘‘No, indeed!” exclaimed Nan, in wondering delight. 
“It is beautiful — the dress, I mean. Dear Mrs. Brent, 
you are too kind to think of me. I am afraid I have not 


NAN HAGC4ARI). 39 

enough money to pay for these lovely things. Tell me — I 
know nothing of my own affairs, Mrs. Brent — 

‘‘ You can talk money business with Mr. Brent when 
you see him. Just now I want you to attend to the all- 
important business of dress. Look now at this set of 
underwear — skirts and night-dresses and other things — 
aren’t they dainty-looking, with their ruffles and embroid- 
eries? There is one more dress I ventured to have made 
for you. Here it is — an evening-gown. Isn’t it nice?” 

‘‘It is perfectly lovely!” ci’ied Nan, looking with awe 
at the robe of cream-colored silk albatross, lace and rib- 
bons. “ Oh, I never could wear a dress like that! I 
should feel out of place in it!” 

“ No you won’t. Just as soon as it is on you will adapt 
yourself to it, and will feel perfectly at home in it. You 
are the kind of a girl to adapt yourself to nice clothes and 
surroundings. I must fix your hair before I put the gown 
on you, however,” she went on, taking out the round comb 
with which the mass of half-curled hair was pushed off 
from Nan’s forehead. 

She gathered up the back hair and fastened it in a loose 
knot with a silver dagger she took from her own coil of 
blonde tresses. Then she drew the short hair in front, 
let a tendril or two fall behind the girl’s pretty ears, and 
combed some of it into a pretty fluffy bang becoming to 
Nan’s rather high, full brow. She peered round into the 
girl’s face. 

“ Oh, the powder! we must have just a touch of pow- 
der. It refines the* skin and covers up sun-tan,” she 
said. 

Before Nan understood what she meant, a soft puff full 
of perfumed, velvety powder had gone over her face and 
throat. Then Mrs. Brent took the rabbit’s foot from its 
place in her dressing-case and applied just a tinge of rouge 
to Nan’s cheeks and chin, smiling to herself at Nan’s un- 
consciousness of what was being done to her. She would 


40 


KAN HAGGARr). 


not allow her a single peep in the mirror until all was 
finished. 

“Now for the gown.’’ 

The creamy mass of lace and soft wool was dropped over 
Nan’s bewildered head, and quickly fastened and adjusted 
by Mrs. Brent’s skillful fingers. Nan looked down at the 
lace and loops of ribbon, and then behind. What a train ! 
a long billowy train, like those worn by the ladies in the 
novels. She — Nan Haggard — in a dress with a train! It 
was like a fairy tale. 

“Now you may look in the glass — No, not yet!” 
cried Mrs. Brent. “ I had forgotten the shoes. You 
must have slippers on. Here is a pair; I bought them my 
own number, thinking if they did not fit you I could wear 
them; but I feel sure they will fit. But first, the stockings. 
Here they are; a lovely pair — cream-silk, embroidered. 
Don’t stoop down; it will muss your lace. Let me put 
them on.” 

Down she went upon her knees, and, in spite of Nan’s 
blushes and remonstrances, she pulled off the ugly shoes 
and home-knit stockings from the girl’s pretty feet, and 
put on in their place the dainty hose of cream silk and the 
black rosetted slippers with high French heels. Then she 
jumped up and took hold of the girl’s hand. 

“Now come and see if you know yourself,” she said, as 
she placed her before the mirror. 

Nan looked, and started back in amazement. 

Know herself? Indeed she did not. The arrangement 
of the hair had changed the whole contour of her face. 
The powder — the touch of rouge — gave her eyes unusual 
brilliancy; while the stays, the long train, the bare, round 
arms escaping from the open sleeves, and the rose-white 
bosom swelling amid the laces of the square-cut bodice — 
all this had utterly transformed her. Could that be she — 
Nan Haggard — gawky, elfish little Nan — that graceful 
shape in the flowing robe, with the high-piled hair, the 


HAGGAED. 


41 


shining eyes and lovely arms and bust? When she had 
read^ in the old novels stowed away in Mrs. De Lacy^s 
lumber-room, about beautiful heroines with statuesque 
faces and steps of grace, she sighed and looked at her own 
reflection in the broken looking-glass, saying to herself 
that nothing but Safa’s magic ointment could ever trans- 
form her into a beauty. 

And now behold ! without Safa’s ointment or any magic 
but that of dress, she was transfigured into something very 
like beauty. 

Mrs. Brent danced about her, enjoying her amazement. 

“ Edmund must see you; I must call Edmund. He 
declared the dresses would never fit. Edmmid, come 
here!” she called, running to the door. 

‘‘ Oh, Mrs. Brent!” 

Nan snatched a shawl and drew it about her. Mrs. 
Brent, laughing, pulled it off as Edmund came to the 
door. He stopped short, and stared at Nan. For a min- 
ute he did not recognize her in the least. He had not the 
slightest idea that this charming vision was the short- 
frocked and awkward girl he had made fun of half an hour 
ago. 

Let me present to you Miss Haggard,” said his moth- 
er, taking Nan by the hand. 

“ "Why — why — is that really Miss Haggard? ’Pon my 
word! What’s made such a change in her looks?” he 
cried, staring at the blushing girl. 

Nothing, only she is a modern Cinderella, who has 
found her godmother,” returned Mrs. Brent, gayly. 

I should like to play Prince to this Cinderella,” he 

said. 

His mother clapped her hands with delight. It was the 
brightest speech she had ever heard him make. . It was 
not often he said a bright or a gallant thing. But she had 
given him the cue. 

“You can begin to play Prince at once!” she cried. 


42 


NAK HAGGARD. 


See, her slipper has dropped off! It is too large. Down 
on your knees and— Ah! you need no prompting in your 
part.’^ 

For he had really dropped on his knee, and was putting 
the slipper back in its place. 

‘‘What a pretty foot!” he said, holdmg the slender, 
arched member in his palm. “ I would like to kiss it!’’ 

“ Well done. Sir Prince!” exclaimed his pleased moth- 
er. “Nan, you are a little witch! You have worked 
your sorcery on this indifferent young man. I never knew 
him to pay a compliment before.” 

Nan hardly knew whether to laugh or cry. She was 
frightened — ashamed. All this was so new to her. When 
the young man rose and stood close to her, looking into her 
face with his bold eyes, and down at her exposed neck and 
arms, she turned from red to white, and catcliing up the 
shawl once more, wound it around her. Mrs. Brent tapped 
her cheek in playful reproof, but praised her modesty at 
the same time. 

“ I am glad you are not like the seasoned society girls 
— aren’t you, Edmund? Few of them are desirable as 
wives. Now we must think of bed, or we shall have Miss 
Bachel after us. Good-night, Sir Prince.” 

She put her arm around Edmund’s neck and kissed him 
affectionately. 

“ May I kiss Cinderella, too?” he said, turning to the 
girl. 

“ You have her godmother’s consent,” said Selma, gay- 
ly. “ Kiss him. Nan; he is not like a stranger, you 
know. We are all one family now.” 

Nan did not know what to say. She stood silent, crim- 
son, frightened. She suddenly felt herself clasped in the 
young man’s arms, drawn to his breast, and his mustached 
mouth pressed to hers. 

“Oh! I ought not to have let him do that! 1 am 


NAJf HAGGARD. 43 

ashamed of myself/^ she said, burying her face in her 
hands, while Edmund, laughing, ran out of the room. 

‘‘Nonsense! there’s no harm in it!” cried Mrs. Brent, 
gayly. “I’ll run now and show the boy where he is to 
sleep.” 

He w^as waiting for her in the hall. 

“ Well, what do you say now?” she' asked. 

“ She’s a sweet girl — a deuced sweet girl. Such arms 
she has, and such a nice little foot! Who’d have thought 
a little dressing-up would have changed her so? It was 
cunning in you to fix her up in that enticing way.” 

“ You won’t object now to marrying her?” 

“N — 0,” hesitating; “but — well, won’t Cora cut uji 
like the devil when she finds it out?” 

“ Cora again! Have I not forbidden you to speak that 
woman’s name in my presence? A coarse, brazen creat- 
ure, not to be named in the same breath with this girl. 
Thank Heaven, she is out of the way! She’ll never dare 
set foot on the island any more.” 

“ That was a mean trick you played to get her away 
from there. A put-up job between you and old Gasker.” 

“ I’ll play her a worse one if she ever goes back. Gasker 
has instructions what to do with her. You promised to 
give her up; if you do not keep that promise you will see 
that I—” 

“ Come, no more threats, or I’ll turn mulish about this 
country miss you want to tie me to. You keep your own 
promise — about that bottle. Where is it?” 

“It is here,” she answered, drawing a bottle from be- 
neath her overskift. 

“ It is only two thirds full,” he grumbled. 

“ There’s enough in it to send you drunk to bed. If 
there was more you’d have another fit, and I want you to 
keep your small share of brains clear for awhile — until — ’ ’ 

“ Until I am married and out of the way. The girl, too 
— you want her out of the way. I can see that much, if I 


44 


KAN HAGGAKD. 


haven’t but a small share of brains. You’ve got some 
reason for it you’re keeping dark. Maybe you think she’s 
so pretty she’ll cut you out, or you don’t want old Brent 
to have the expense of supporting her. Why don’t you 
let her stay here, then, and feed the chickens, and wear 
calico frocks, and marry some clod-hopper. What are you 
taking her to the city for? I can’t see through you.” 

‘‘I don’t expect you to. I only ask you to obey me. 
That you must do, or my purse shuts against you forever. 
You understand?” 

I ought to. You din it into my ears enough,” he 
said, preparing to mount the stairs. 

She looked after him. She saw him stop at the landing 
and put the bottle to his mouth. 

“ Besotted idiot!” she said to herself. ‘‘ And to think 
he is my son! What a burden of shame he has been to 
me ! I might have been a different woman if there had 
been a creature of my own blood I could love and cherish. 
Well, I can make him my tool in carrying out the purpose 
I have set my heart upon. And it will be the best thing 
that could happen to him — to marry a girl like this — a 
girl he never could get if she was not as ignorant of the 
world and men as a baby, and to go with her off to the 
island out of the reach of temptation to drink, and where 
he will not mortify and disgrace me. It is best for him 
and for me. As for the girl! Poor little simpleton! Well, 
there must always be a victim.” 

With a little philosophic shrug of the shoulders, Selma 
turned from the railing of the stairs and went back into 
the room she was to occupy with Nan. 

What, disrobed already, my sweet Cinderella!” she 
said, as she saw that the girl had undressed and was attired 
in her coarse, clean white night-gown. 

‘‘ It is so late,” said Nan, and Miss Bachel does not 
like late hours.” 


NAK HAGGAED. 45 

Selma detected the little constraint in the tones, and saw 
> the half -troubled shadow on the child’s face. 

“ I was too fast to-night/’ she said to herself. “ I 
^ould not have let Edmund kiss her.- Ignorant as she is, 
she has fine instincts. I must be careful or I shall lose 
her.’” 

‘MVe must not offend Miss Rachel,” she said, aloud, 

and we must not offend you, my dear, with our innova- 
tion of ways that are new to you. I anl afraid we have 
frightened you, by trying to make you feel yourself one of 
us, and not a stranger.” 

‘^Oh, you are very, very kind!” Nan said, hurriedly. 

I am not used to so much friendliness, that is all. I 
have seen so few households beside this one — and this does 
not seem a household now — since Grandma Calvert died. 
I know I seem to you very ignorant, for I am. I don’t 
know anything about how people in the world think and 
talk and act. You must bear with me, dear Mrs. Brent, 
and teach me.” 

Selma promised, and she kissed her, and then the girl 
knelt down by the bed and said her prayers, as she had 
done every night of her life, and the woman of the world, 
with her seared heart, looked at the white-gowned, kneel- 
ing little figure, and felt a stirring of compunction and 
pity that was new to her. But the sting of conscience was 
not strong enough to lead her to give up her victim. She 
had too much at stake. 


CHAPTER VII. 

GOOD-BYE TO THE COUHTET HOME. 

1 WILL be up before day,” Nan had said to herself, as 
she was dropping to sleep; but it was broad day when her 
brown eyes flashed open. She lay for a minute bewildered 
by the fact that she was not in her own little garret-room, 
but in the guest-chamber — in the high-piled, best bed, with 


46 


KAN HAGGARD. 


its big tester and Irish chain bed-quilt of bright red-and- 
green patchwork, with the ancient engraving of fatherly 
William Penn, in long waistcoat and knee-breeches, driv- 
ing a hard bargain with Lo, the poor Indian,’^ looking 
down upon her from the mantel-piece. 

‘‘ How came I here? ’ was her first thought. Then she 
caught sight of Selma’s dainty garments hanging across a 
chair, and suddenly remembering, turned to look admir- 
ingly at the golden head lying on the pillow next to hers. 

She slid softly out of bed. No need to wake Mrs. Brent 
yet, she thought. She wondered if she should put on the 
pretty gray dress Selma had laid out for her. As she held 
the skirt reflectively in her hand she caught sight of the 
cream-tinted gown she had worn last night. A blush 
tingled through her — a blush half shame, half pleasure. 
She remembered her bare arms — Edmund Hoyt’s look — 
Edmund Hoyt’s kiss. 

f ‘‘ What would Mrs. De Lacy say — and Miss Rachel — 
and Mr. Slow?” she thought, going over in her mind her 
little world, and picturing them as witnesses to last night’s 
performance. 

‘‘But Mrs. Brent said it was all right. She ought to 
know. We live so out of the world here. AVe are fossils 
— Mrs. De Lacy says so herself.” 

She decided to put on her calico frock, and go out and 
help Miss Rachel with the breakfast, as usual. 

When she had buttoned it up behind she looked at her- 
self in the cracked mirror. 

“No wonder that young men thought me a country 
gawk!” she thought. “ I look hideous — and how ridicu- 
lously childish! Yet I did look like a lady last night — like 
the picture of a lady in the old keepsake at Mrs. De 
Lacy’s.” 

Miss Rachel was clattering away with the pots and pans 
at the stove when Nan entered the kitchen. She turned 
her eyes upon the girl, but vouchsafed no response to her 


KAK HAGGARD. 4? 

timid good-morning/’ but went on with her work, her 
\face rigid and sullen. 

Nan strained the milk and put it away, made the bis- 
cuit, and set them in the oven to bake; then she went into 
the garden to gather fresh lettuce and radishes for breakfast. 

jShe was pulling up the round, ruby-colored little rad- 
ishes', shaking the fresh earth from their roots, and putting 
them into a basket, when she heard a laugh overhead. She 
looked up, and there, in the end window of her little 
room, sat Edmund smoking a cigar. 

To Nan’s unsophisticated eyes he looked very handsome 
and nonchalantly graceful as he bowed and smiled down 
u2)on her. A minute before there had been a sneer on his 
full, sensuous mouth as he watched the girl at her rustic 
task. The rural grace of her occupation and the pathetic 
charm of he'r little figure, half girl, half child, in the out- 
grown frock, was lost on him. 

Nan sprung to her feet, spilling half the radishes. She 
shook the garden soil from her skirts, and tried to laugh, 
blushing furiously. But Edmund remembered his part, 
and nodded reassuringly. 

“ Hurrah for you! you are worth a dozen lazy city 
girls!” he cried. ‘‘But don’t you know we are to start 
early? I wouldn’t be left in this prosy place for any- 
thing; you must hurry and get ready. Make Selma get 
up; she will lie in bed until ten o’clock if you don’t.” 

Nan gathered up her radishes and ran into the house. 
Breakfast was nearly ready. She said to Miss Rachel: 

“ I’ll go and wake Mrs. Brent.” 

She found the lady awake, lying in bed, her fair brow 
knit in thought. She stretched out her arms with a smile, 
and drew the girl to her. 

“ Cinderella, what do you mean by turning back into 
kitchen-maid? Go, take off the calico frock and put on 
your traveling-suit. I’ll get up and help you get ready.” 

Nan obeyed. The ‘kitchen-maid’s frock was exchanged 


48 


KAN HAGGABD. 


for the pretty light -gray serge, and Mrs. Brent fastened the 
collar and cuffs, and arranged Nan’s lovely hair. 

“ I did not show you your hat; it matches the dress,” 
she said, and took from a compartment of the trunk a 
gray felt English walking-hat with trimming of black 
velvet and curling feather- tips. Put it on, and then go 
and gather some flowers for your belt and mine — some of 
the wild-roses I saw in the twilight when we came; they 
were in a corner of the orchard fence. They are prettier 
than Miss Rachel’s phlox and marigolds. Take Edmund 
with you, to keep him from coming in and hurrying me. 
I will be ready by the time you get back. ” 

Selma did not really want the roses, but she did not 
care to have Nan see her put the artificial roses from the 
rouge-pot on her cheeks. She wanted the girl to have 
perfect faith in her genuineness. Then she wished Edmund 
to see how trim and graceful Nan looked in her traveling- 
dress. 

The two went down the hill toward the clump of rose- 
bushes at its foot. Suddenly they came upon Miss Rachel. 
She was standing behind a large tree, and she was so visi- 
bly discomposed at seeing them that Nan wondered what 
her being there could meaij. Why had she left the break- 
fast-room and come here to stand beside the road? Was 
she watching for any one? Could she be watching for the 
professor, who would soon be passing, on his way to the 
school-house? Had his present to her, the evening before, 
and Miss Rachel’s jealousy in consequence, rekindled the 
embers of love in that elderly maiden’s breast? And was 
she here to say a word to her old suitor — perhaps to ask 
him to call to see her this afternoon as he came from his 
school? 

‘‘It is a pity we have frustrated her little plan,” Nan 
thought, as Miss Rachel stepped into the road and respond- 
ed with a grim look to Edminid's bow. Then she said 
shortly to Nan: 


HAGGAED. 


49 


\ You’d better came back to tbe house, gettin’ your 
sii^art clothes all messed with dew. I’ve been a-lookin’ 
aftW the speckled pullet what’s missin’. There’s nobody 
to ^e to anythin’ but me.” 

Nan could have said, ‘‘You have just seen me feed the 
speckled pullet,” but she refrained from saying anything, 
and Miss Rachel strode rapidly toward the house. 

The roses had been gathered, and they were returning, 
when they saw the professor in his flowered gown and 
broad hat coming along the path. Nan asked Edmund to 
go on, while she waifed for her old teacher. He held an 
open “ Smith’s Grammar ” before him, and he was so 
busy conning the parsing lesson for the day that Nan had 
to speak before he looked up and saw her. 

He pushed up his spectacles and stared at her in amaze- 
ment. He did not recognize her at flrst. Then, as she 
came toward him smiling, he exclaimed: 

“ Is it a vision? No, it is my little Nan herself. But 
what a fine lady she is! So you did get a birthday-present 
after all. I am glad Miss Rachel opened her heart.” 

“ It was my guardian — his wife rather,” Nan said, her 
eyes dropping under the professor’s look of admiring affec- 
tion. Then she told him what had happened — the change 
that had come into her life, the good-bye she must say to 
him and to the old school-house in the hollow. 

He looked troubled and dejected, but he shook off the 
feeling and ccmgratulated her heartily. 

“ I felt a way would be opened for you. Nan — a broader 
way. You deserved better opportunities. You will have 
them now, I trust. I am sorry you could not see Mrs. De 
Lacy, but I will take her your message, and the little gifts 
this very evening. Good-bye, Nan — my dear, good little 
pupil. The old school-house will be mighty lonesome with- 
out you.” 

He took her hand and pressed it in both his palms. He 
looked at her tear-wet face wistfully, as though he would 


KAK HAGGAJiD. 


50 

like to kiss the tremulous red lips. But Miss Eachel cam6 
to the door, and he dropped Nan’s hand and turned o5, 
vigorously blowing his nose in his red silk handkerchief. 

Breakfast was ready — a nice breakfast, served in homely 
but clean and appetizing style. Miss Rachel was neatness 
incarnate. Before they rose from the table, the hack that 
had been directed to come at eight rattled to the door. 
Nan had put a few books and little articles that had been 
her mother’s into the new trunk; and she had written a 
few lines to Mrs. De Lacy and put it into a small parcel 
which Mr. Slow would take to the dear old friend. Then 
holding Kitty in her arms, and with Bruin walking around 
and eying her with mournful intelligence. Nan said good- 
bye to the only home she had ever known. Mrs. Brent 
liad slipped a bill into Miss Rachel’s hand, and she bid 
adieu to the sobbing girl not ungraciously. Then Nan 
shook hands with Seeley and Bruin, gave Kitty a last hug, 
climbed into the hack beside Mrs. Brent, and took her 
last look at the old orchard through a mist of tears as the 
liack jolted and rattled away. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

NAN IN THE CITY. — THE FIEST EVENING IN HER NEW 
HOME. — A SONG INTERRUPTED. 

Late that afternoon Nan arrived in the city. The 
journey had been novel and exciting to the girl who had 
never been five miles away from Haggard Creek since she 
came to it a baby. It was a keen pleasure to her to watch 
the swiftly changing landscape from the car-window, the 
panorama of woods and mountains, of brown country 
houses nestled among green hills, of way-side towns, and 
now and then a pretty stream, and at last the broad, roll- 
ing river, at the mouth of which the city was situated. 

She had never imagined anything so pleasant as sitting 
upon soft cushions, wearing a stylish dress, and having her 


KAN HAGGARD. 


51 


cc^iifort looked after by a lovely woman and a handsome 
yoitng man, who brought her lemonade and oranges and 
told\her the names of the towns they passed through. 

She did not notice that all these attentions were the re- 
sult of his mother^s suggestions. These suggestions were 
casually dropped in Selma^s low, soft voice; and Nan did 
not see that they were enforced by a look that Edmund 
well understood. 

In spite of all his mother could do, he slept a goodly 
part of the journey. She excused this to Nan on the 
ground that he had been traveling a good deal of late and 
his rest had been broken. She pinched him awake more 
than once, and stopped the angry exclamation on his lips 
by one of those warning looks. Nan thought him very 
kind, and very good-looking in his tasseled traveling-cap. 

It was sunset when the train steamed into the big depot. 
Nan’s eyes were caught by the sight of the masts and rig- 
ging of the ships in the bay, and the tall chimneys of the 
steamboats. She had a glimpse of the blue, broad water 
— her first sight of the sea, and clasped her hands with 
delight. 

She sat in the carriage, silent with wonder, as they were 
driven along the streets. She saw on either side long rows 
of tall houses^ and streams of people hurrying along as 
though to some all-important goal. At each cross-street 
she saw long lighted vistas at either hand. She heard the 
rattle of cars and drays, the roll of carriages, the hum of 
machinery. For the first time she had an idea of the num- 
ber and the variety of people it takes to make up the 
world, and of the rush of life and work in the great cen- 
ters where human beings are gathered. 

The carriage stopped before a brown-stone house. 

“We are at home!” cried Selma, jumping out and ex- 
tending her hand. “ Come in and let us have some tea. 
How hungry I am!” 

They were received by a pretty house-maid who opened 


52 


NAN HAGGARD, v 


for them the door of the cheerful luxurious sitting-room. 
Nan looked around for her guardian. She longed to see 
this man — her father^s friend — to whose care he had com- 
mitted his child. 

Selma saw her glance wander around the room. 

‘‘You are looking for Mr. Brent/ ^ she said. “ He has 
probably gone to bed. He is in wretched health, nervous 
and dreading to meet any one. You will see but little of 
him. Nan. I will do my best to supply his place. I want 
you to feel at home with us — to feel as if we were your 
parents, and Edmimd — she stopped long enough for 
Nan to notice the pause — “ and Edmund will do every- 
thing he can to make you happy; will you not, my love?” 
she went on, turning to Edmund. He was only intent on 
getting to his dinner. 

“ Certainly,” he muttered. 

“ He is now waiting to take you down to dinner. Come 
on, my children. I am dying for a good cup of tea after 
the jolting I have endured this day.” 

She led the way to a cheerful room, where a nice little 
dinner was set— a dinner for three only. Naii^s guardian 
did not appear. 

After dinner Selma took Nan to the music-room, giving 
Edmund a glance that commanded him to follow. He 
would have preferred staying to joke with the pretty serv- 
ant who waited at table, and persuade her to give him 
some wine. 

Selma seated herself at the piano and began to play. 
She had a soft touch, and she played such music as she 
was sure Nan would like — sweet Italian music, full of 
tenderness and fancy. 

It was the first time Nan had ever heard real music. 
The only instrument she had ever seen played was the 
cheap little parlor organ with which Miss Susan Brooks 
accompanied the hymn-singing in the church at Haggard 
Creek, and the once grand piano — now a worn-out rattle- 


KAN HAGGARD. 


53 

^rap — in Mrs. De Lacy^s moth-eaten drawing-room. The 
old-fashioned music played upon its yellow keys — some of 
them quite dumb— by Mrs. De Lacy’s rheumatic hands, 
was a very different thing to the exquisite notes that fell 
from Selma’s white fingers as they caressed the ivory 
keys. 

She sat half within the bay-window, drinking in the 
dreamy music. Selma turned around and looked at her 
with an admiring smile. 

One can see you love music,” she said. You sing, I 
. know. With those eyes and that sweet-speaking voice, you 
need not deny it. Now I can’t sing a note, and Edmund 
is passionately fond of songs. I will play an accompani- 
ment, if you will sing something — anything.” 

‘‘I? Oh, 1 don’t know whether I can sing at all — fit 
for you to hear. Mrs. De Lacy liked to hear me sing. She 
taught me some old songs. They are all I know.” 

“ Old songs, like old wine, are best; particularly old love 
songs.' Don’t you like old love songs, Edmund, dear?” 

‘‘Yes. I like the ‘ Yellow Rose of Texas ’ and ‘ Buffalo 
Girls, Won’t You— Come Out ” 

His mother’s look cut him short. He did not care for 
any songs, except some rattling drinking choruses and 
beer-garden ditties, but he knew he must back his moth- 
er’s request. 

“ Yes, do sing us a love song. Nan,” he said, and came 
to her, holding out his hand to lead her to the piano. She 
rose, confused and blushing, but Selma put her at her 
ease. She played a few notes of the air of “ Highland 
Mary,” and looked up at Nan. “ You know this, I am 
sure.” 

“ Oh, yes. I used to hear my mother sing it when I 
was a little child. I got Mrs. De Lacy to teach me.” 

“ It begins so — doesn’t it? I have forgotten the words,” 
Selma said, and began to hum the air as she played.' ' 

Before Nan knew it almost she had begun to sing — 


54 


NAN HAGGARD. 


tremulously at first, but presently her voice grew clear and 
strong— a sweet, bird-like voice, just suited to the tender 
ballad. Mrs. Brent nodded encouragingly, and she began 
the second verse. She was interrupted — a startled excla- 
mation broke into the song. The eyes of all three turned 
to the door. Nan saw a pale, emaciated man, with a figure 
that had once been powerful, but was now stooped and 
shrunken. His sallow, deeply lined face was convulsed 
with emotion— that seemed amazement mixed with terror. 
His eyes were fastened upon Nan; he made a step toward 
her. 

‘‘ Anabel— is it Anabel?’^ he cried. ‘‘ Have, you come 
back to punish me again. I — 

His further utterance was summarily checked by Selma. 
She seized his arm and pulled him out of the room. 

^ Nan, wondering and frightened, looked at Edmund for 
an explanation of the strange scene. 

It’s the old chap — Brent. You know he has spells 
like that sometimes. It’s softening of the brain, the doc- 
tors say. I don’t know -what Selma ever took him for. I 
thought it was for his money, but he doesn’t seem to have 
such a lot of that. At least I don’t get to handle it. How 
he did stare at 5mu — like you was a ghost. And what was 
that he called you?” 

‘‘ He called me Anabel; it was my mother’s name, and 
it is mine, too — only no. one calls me by it. Mr. Brent 
must have taken me for my mother — I am like her, they 
say. He knew her well; he was often at our house. He 
was my father’s friend — and mother’s, I think — but — ” 

She stopped. There rose in her mind a dim recollection 
of something she had seen m those early days, when she 
and her mother lived alone at the cottage by Dead Hopes 
Mine. Was it a dream? — or had she really seen her moth- 
er standing, with a white face and flashing eyes, before 
this man, and heard her say: 

‘‘ Do not dare to come here again! Oh! I thought you 


KAK HAGGAED. 55 

were my husband’s friend. I shall tell him how he is de- 
ceived.” 

And the man had answered with a threat — she could not 
understand; but he. went away, and then her mother had 
caught her up and cried over her, saying, in the midst of 
her sobs: 

‘^We have no friend, little one — no friend in this 
strange country!” 

Had she dreamed this, or was it a memory of what had 
truly happened? It had come into her mind more than 
once, but never so vividly as when that voice calling her 
‘‘ Anabel ” fell on her ear. No, she could not have 
dreamed the scene — it .was too vivid. But what did it 
mean? She roused herself from the maze of perplexed 
thought. Edmund was saying: 

‘‘ I think he must have scared you pretty bad; you look 
kind of dazed. He doesn’t scare me, but he makes me mad 
sometimes — the disrespectful way he talks to me — an old, 
shaky chap like him. Selma won't let me talk back at 
him. He wants me to go and stay on an old island he 
owns ’way down — two or three hundred miles south of 
here — the lonesomest place you ever saw. Good fishin’ 
and huntin’ there, though; and, if they’d let me have the 
ones I want to keep me company, I wouldn’t mind staying 
there, if they’d pay me for it. There’s nobody on it but 
the overseer and the blacks that raise the rice, and sugar- 
cane, and the oranges — ” 

‘‘An island in the sea, where oranges and sugar-cane 
grow! How I should like to go there! I wouldn’t mind 
living there, if I were you.” 

“ Yes, you would. I tell you it’s lonesome as a grave- 
yard. It’s named Lost Island, and the frogs croak there 
all night — a regular tune. Cora used to mock them on 
the banjo. She could play anything she wanted to — play 
on the piano, too — and she never took a lesson. She’s a 
rattler, I tell you! Can’t you play?” 


56 


KAN HAGGARD. 


‘‘ Not at all; I wish I could. Can you?” 

“ Yes; I know a lot of tunes — picked them up around 
town. Here’s a funny song the girls sing at Milligan’s 
Varieties. It’s all the go.” 

He sat down to the piano, and, thumping an accom- 
paniment, began to sing in his really sweet tenor one of 
those dance-songs with catchy airs that hide gross allu- 
sions under the seeming nonsense of the words. Nan had 
not the slightest idea of this underlying coarseness. She 
rather enjoyed the lively air and Edmund’s energetic ren- 
dering. 

He began another still more broad, and asked, at the 
conclusion of the first verse: 

“ Do you know what that means?” 

She shook her head. 

It’s just nonsense-verse, like ‘ Mother Goose,’ ” she 

said. 

“ Oh, what a greeny you are!” he cried. ‘‘You 
couldn’t fool Co^ — ” 

“ Edmund, you are boring Nan, and she is tired and 
sleepy.” 

Selma appeared in the door. Nan did not see the scath- 
ing look she bestowed on Edmund. She turned to her 
with a smile, and said: 

“ Let me take you to your room, my dear. I know you 
are tired. It is past your early bed-time.” 

Nan saw that she looked pale and worried. When they 
were alone, Selma said to her: 

“ Every house, they say, has its skeleton. You have 
had a glimpse of ours to-night. Mr. Brent’s mmd is giv- 
ing way. He has never been himself since he happened to 
a dreadful accident ten years ago in some mining opera- 
tion.” 

“ Oh, I know! It was at Dead Hopes Mine— that fatal 
old mine — fatal to my father and mother and to him, 
their — ” 


NAlf HAGGABD. 


57 


She hesitated with the word ‘‘ frieiid " ' on her lips. Sel- 
ma finished the sentence. 

Your father’s friend. Yes, he was indeed his friend 
— and your mother’s. You see how he was affected at 
sight of you — he says you are the image of your mother. 
He feels remorseful for having in a manner neglected you 
all these years — but you now see the cause. His mind 
was shattered by the shock of that explosion. He has neg- 
lected business, things have gone wrong, and lately he 
has speculated unwisely. These fresh trpubles weigh on 
him. They make him morbid. He has conceived a strange 
dislike to poor Edmimd, and I must send my boy away. 
It is a sore trial to me.” 

She put her handkerchief, a dainty bit of cambric, to 
her eyes» Nan’s tender heart was filled with sympathy. 
She took Selma’s hand and pressed it to her lips. Then 
a sudden thought came to her. 

‘‘You spoke of money troubles just now, dear Mrs. 
Brent, and here you have taken me on your hands — bought 
me all these nice things. I can not take anything more. 
I will not stay here, a burden upon you. I must do some- 
thing to earn my own support. I must indeed. ” 

“ Y’'ou — my child? What could you do in this crowded, 
pushing world? Look at yourself in the glass there. That 
little head was made to be caressed, not to bother itself 
about the question of daily bread and butter. No, you 
must stay with me until you are married.” 

“ Married!” Nan’s eyes opened wide. “ That will be 
a long time, if it ever comes. I am not old enough.” 

“ The younger the better, I sometimes think. It is 
woman’s destiny to love and to make some one who loves 
her happy.” 

Nan was silent, taking in this new thought put into 
her head by the wily woman. At last she said : 

“ I would rather go to school and be educated, and fitted 
for some career. But I know I have not money enough 


58 


NAN HAGGARD. 


for this. I have not money enough to support me if I 
should go to the free school, and I will not — I can not be 
dependent on you, dear friend. Could I not sell that land, 
and get something, if it was only a little? It must be 
worth something for the timber that is on it.'’^ 

‘‘ Yes, it is true. It is of some value; but the difficulty 
is to find a purchaser, and you want the money immediate- 
ly. Mr. Brent would buy it of you, and run the chances 
of finding some one to take it off his hands; but you can 
not sell it lawfully until you are of age.^’ 

‘‘ Oh, that is so long — too long!’^ • 

‘‘ Or imtil you are married. Then your husband is one 
with you, and he can transact any business of yours. But, 
dear child, don’t trouble your little head with these hard 
problems. Be content. Let the morrow take care of it- 
self. There is your nice white bed waiting for you. Take 
a good sleep, and •wake early, and let Edmund take you 
out sight-seeing. You must see the pictures and the play, 
and hear some good music. To think you have never been 
to a theater! How I will enjoy watching you when you 
see your first play. Good-night, and sweet sleej) and 
dreams come to you.” 

She pressed her soft perfumed lips to the girl’s brow and 
left her, haying artfully sowed in her mind two thoughts 
that would germinate. First, the thought of her depend- 
ence, the feeling that her support must come from those 
who were already embarrassed in business. Second, the 
thought of marriage, both as a state of blissful destiny, to 
love and to make happy some one who loved her, and as a 
step necessary to getting the money she needed. If she 
were married, she could sell that land which now yielded 
her no profit. 

These thoughts were busy in her brain long after her 
curly head was nestled on its soft pillow. They almost 
put out of her mind the recollection of the strange looks 
and words of the man who had interrupted her song, and 


NAK HAGGARD. 


59 


the stranger recollection his face had caused to start up 
from the mists of her memory. The scene was repeated 
that night in her dreams^, only now she was no longer a 
child^ but a girl grown, and her mother had appealed to 
her to fly from this man — her father’s enemy — and when 
she had tried to get away she found her feet entangled in 
the coils of a snake. She woke trembling with horror. 

Oh, it is only a dream,” she thought, with a feeling 
of I'elief. A snake means treachery, and nobody is 
treacherous here. They are so kind — Mrs. Brent and her 
son — and they have no object in being kind to me — a poor, 
friendless orphan. ’ ’ 

The moon was shining against her window. It opened 
above a balcony, and as she lay she could hear the notes of 
a guitar softly touched, and presently a voice began to 
sing. It was Edmund’s rich voice that sung two verses of 
Shelley’s pretty serenade: 

“ ‘ I wake from dreams of thee, 

And a spirit in my feet 
Has led me— who knows how? 

To thy chamber window, sweet.’ ” 

It was Selma who pla5'ed the guitar, and it was Selma who 
had roused him up from his nap on the sofa and forced him 
to sing the song she had made him learn. Like most half- 
witted beings, he could readily learn anything by lieart — 
rhymes particularly — though he had hardly an idea of the 
thought or sentiment contained in them. 

But Nan knew notliing of this. She lay listening to the 
music and the beautiful words of the love song, and her 
heart thrilled with a strange new longing. What wonder 
that her fancy should begin to weave a halo for this, the 
first young man she had ever seen? So much for Selma’s 
plan. She had done more than one stroke of work on this 
night. 


60 


KAN HAGGARD. 


CHAPTER IX. 

SELMA REVEALS HER FLAKS. 

After Selma had left Nan, wishing her happy dreams, 
she went back to the room where she had left her hus- 
band. By this time he would have recovered from the 
shock he had received. She had given him a stimulant 
• that had the effect of strengthening his brain for the time. 

She found him walking aimlessly about the room. He 
had lighted the gas in all the burners, and had even lighted 
the candles on the mantel. He looked at her in a wild yet 
deprecating way. He was afraid of this woman, who had 
married him, as he had found out, for his money, and who 
felt herself bitterly deceived and wronged because he had 
not the wealth report had credited him with. 

‘‘ Well,’^ she said, as she seated herself and motioned 
for him to take a seat in front of her, “ have you come to 
your senses? Are you not ashamed to have made such an 
exhibition of yourself before a stranger ?^^ 

Who was she — who was that young woman he 
asked, huskily, as he dropped into a chair, his bony frame 
shaking. 

‘‘ She is Nan Haggard, your ward, that you have neg- 
lected so long.’’ 

‘‘Nan Haggard? Nan Haggard is a child.” 

“ She was a child — ten years ago. Did you think she 
was going to stay one? I went after her and brought her 
away, as I told you I meant to do.” 

“But not here! Why did you bring her here? You 
must send her away — you must send her away at once!” 

“ There is no place to send her. She can not stay at 
Haggard Creek any longer. She would soon know — what 
A I don’t intend she shall know. ” 
an 


KAN HAGGARD. 


61 


She must not stay here; I could not stand it. I tell 
you she is the living image of her mother — the same voice, 
the same face. I thought I saw before me the woman that 
I—” 

He stopped and caught his breath convulsively, then 
dropped his face in his hands. 

The woman that you loved, though she was the wife 
of your employer. Yes, I know that; you have told it in 
your sleep, and betrayed it when you were awake. But 
what of that? The woman is dead; she has been in her 
grave for ten years. 

She does not stay in her grave, he said, looking up 
with haggard, blood -shot eyes. She leaves it to haunt 
me — she comes every night — she — ” 

“ Stuff and nonsense cried Selma, impatiently. “You 
are simply crazy. Why should she haunt you? You could 
not make more ado if you had murdered the woman. 

She was looking at him sharply as she said this. She 
saw his face change, a strange look came into his eyes — a 
frightened, wild expression. Instantly Selma knew that 
what she had often vaguely suspected was true. 

She bent close to him and caught his arm in her steel- 
like grasp. 

“ It true,^’ she said, her face near to his. “ You did 
do that deed! You did did murder Anabel Haggard!” 

His face was pitiful to see. It was convulsed with terror 
and agony. 

“ I did not do it on purpose,” he answered, faintly. 
“ I would have died first. I meant the blow for him. He 
had cursed me — he had threatened me — ” 

“ Because he had found out that you had deceived him 
about the mine, and that you had made love to his wife 
while he was gone. Yes, you killed them both — the 
woman you loved and the man you had cheated. That is 
your secret. You might have told me at first; you might 
liave known I would find it out. A horrible secret it is. 


62 


NAN HAGaARD. 


No wonder you can not rest; no wonder you imagine she 
comes to you from the grave. No — 

Silence, woman! Have you no mercy?’ ^ he cried, in a 
loud, unshaking voice — such a voice as had been his in 
his prime. He started to his feet and stood before her. 
‘‘ How dare yoic to judge me so hardly?” 

She half cowered under his look. 

‘‘lam your wife,” she said. “ The disgrace of having 
married a criminal falls — ” 

“You married me for money,” he interrupted, with 
bitter vehemence. “You despised me when you found I 
did not have it. You would have left me at once if I had 
not — weak fool that I was! — told you the secret of Hag- 
gard’s mine. Then it was you who urged me to carry out 
that fraud — that wrong to Haggard’s child. I had had a 
warning not to go on with it — a warning that nearly cost 
me my life.” 

“ It was no warning; it was only a dream, or a fancy 
of your distempered brain.” 

“ It was no dream,” he muttered, in a changed voice. 
The flash of fitful strength died out of his face. He 
dropped feebly into a chair, and went on: “It was no 
fancy; it was she herself — Anabel Haggard— out of her 
grave. She came to me in the night. She made me get 
out of my bed and follow her. She made me charge the 
bore, and set the train, and ignite the fuse. Then she 
lifted her arm. ‘ This is for punishment,’ she said; and 
at that instant came the shock that nearly tore my limbs 
apart. Do you think I would touch the accursed mine 
after that?” 

“ But I she said. “ I have no such cowardly 

fears. I will take the matter in my own hands. I have 
no longer any faith in you or your promises after the 
weakness you have shown to-night. You let your oppor- 
tunity escape you. It was easy then, when the girl was a 
mere baby, and the lad was believed to be worthless — it 


NAK HAGGARD. 


63 


was easy for you, her supposed guardian, to have offered it 
for sale — to have bought it yourself, worked it, and found 
the gold vein you had pretended was exhausted. Now the 
task is harder. The girl is grown. She has friends that 
are on the lookout for her interests. Experts have lately 
examined the land and reported it to be rich in gold. 
Parties have come to buy it. They are at Haggard Creek 
now. They would have seen Nan Haggard to-morrow, 
and she would have found out that the land was valuable. 
Then all hope of your getting it would be over.’’ 

“■I don’t want it, I tell you. The girl shall have it. 
She shall have her rights. I’ll let her know to-morrow. 
I will make that much amends for the wrong I have 
done.” 

Selma turned upon him with flashing eyes. 

‘‘You will not!” she said. “ You will do no such 
thing! You talk of amending wrongs— where is the 
amendment of the wrong you did me? You deceived me 
into marrying you when you knew you were bankrupt. 
Now you are helpless and penniless, and I must turn nurse 
and drudge — I, who might have been the wife of a man 
of genius and position — a man who coins money by his 
brains! Ho you think I will let you beggar me through 
your cowardly scruples? It is late in the day for you to 
have scruples. That girl does not know the good of 
money. She has been raised to work and hardship. I 
will see she does not suffer. She shall marry at once, and 
when she is married she shall sell you the land for a few 
hundred dollars.” 

“ The man she married would not be such a fool as to 
let her do it. He would suspect foul play.” 

“ The man she marries will do as I bid him, for the man 
will be Edmund Hoyt!” 

“ Edmund Hoyt!” Stephen Brent once more flashed 
into strength. “Edmund Hoyt — that drunken brute — 
that idiot — that — ” 


64 


NAN HAGGARD. 


‘‘ Be silent, if you please/-^ Selma commanded. She had 
grown pale with anger. ‘‘You are speaking to me of my 
son, remember.’^ 

“You know him as well as I do. I tell you that child 
— AnabeFs child — shall not" be given to that — that dissi- 
pated creature. I will prevent it. I will warn her. I—'' 

“ Try it if you dare. I will lock you in this room and 
send for a keeper of the mad-house to put a strait- jacket 
upon you and take you away. I will, as sure as I stand 
here!’’ 

He seemed suddenly to collapse as she hissed this threat 
in his ear. He dropped his head on his hands — his usual 
attitude, in which he often sat motionless for hours. Her 
anger passed as she looked at him. 

“ I mean no harm to the girl,” she said. “ Edmund 
will make her a very good husband. They will go to Lost 
Island. He can get no liquor there. He will reform, and 
his mind will grow stronger. She likes him; she has never 
known any other young man to compare him with. She 
will be content. Where is the great wrong in this?’" 

He made no reply. His spirit seemed to be broken; he 
lapsed into the silent, trance-like mood which was a feature 
of his disorder. 

Selma looked at him, as he sat there, a bowed, shrunken, 
pitiable figure, with mingled pity and contempt. 

“ Yes; he will soon be helpless and a bankrupt,” she 
thought. “ There is only one hope left — Nan Haggard’s 
gold. I must work this scheme to get it. It is forced 
upon me. I can not help myself. It is fate.” 

She went into the sitting-room, shook Edmund out of 
his heavy sleep as he lay on the sofa, and primed him for 
the serenade that waked Nan'. from her first slumber, and 
waked also that first thrill of passionate emotion in her 
young breast. 


I^-AIsT HAGGARD, 


65 


CHAPTER X. 

NAH HA^ A VISITOR AND A LETTER. — SHE GETS SIGHT OF 
NEITHER. 

Two days had gonfe by. Sight-seeing was a delightful 
and novel experience to Nan. Edmund was her cicerone, 
but Selma was far too wise to let him go unaccompanied 
by her. She knew how to restrain him, how to cover his 
blunders, how to make his stupidity seem thoughtfulness, 
and his nonsense seem wit. She had to be constantly 
watchful of him, while she exerted all her powers to fasci- 
nate Nan. • . 

In this she fully succeeded. The little, ignorant girl 
thought this charming woman the realization of every ideal 
she had ever formed in her romantic brain. 

Edmund, because he was Selma’s son, would have found 
favor in her eyes, even if he had been homely instead of 
handsome. 

He was the first young companion she had ever had. In- 
stinctive sexual sympathy drew her to him. She found a 
charm in being w'aited upon by him, in having him bring 
her fiowers, and help her over rough places or crowded 
street crossings, and in the evening to teach her to play 
whist, or sing to her, while Selma ifiayed. If the thought 
that he was queer or coarse in manner and dull in talk 
ever came into her mind, she dismissed it as unjust. 

It is his way,” she thought. “ It is the way of all 
young men, no doubt. It is because I am so ignorant of 
the world.” » 

But all the strange and beiilkiful things she saw did not 
make her forget her purpose of earning her own support. 

The hurrying people in the streets, the business and 
bustle, the incessant throbbing of the great pulse of in- 

3 


66 


NAN HAGGARD. 


dustry stirred the abundant energy there was in the girl. 
She felt she too must be up and doing. 

She said so to Selma the third day after she had been in 
the house of her guardian, whom, however, she had not 
yet spoken to. She had seen him once after that first 
night, but the half -frightened look, hurriedly withdrawn, 
that he cast on her as he shambled by on his way out 
showed her that he wanted to avoid her. 

“Where will you go to-day?’^ asked Selma, coming 
into the room, having exchanged her pretty morning-dress 
for a street suit of dark-green cloth that fitted her fine 
shape perfectly. “Shall we drive to the park? The 
trees are lovely now in their October ripeness — just a tinge 
of autumn crimson here and there. There has scarcely 
been a hint of frost. Or will you take another look at the 
galleries? You could hardly tear yourself away from those 
pictures. Or shall we go shopping — there are so many 
beautiful things to look at in the stores — and we will take 
Edmund along to carry our small packages.’^ 

“ I shall look well going shopping with an emj^ty 
purse, said Nan, smiling. “ I think, instead of spend- 
ing money, I will try to earn some. Indeed, 1 don-^t feel 
right to be idle. I have always had something to do. Miss 
Eachel often told me I didn’t earn my salt, but I knew 
better. Now, I am not earning my salt, and I must set 
about doing it at once. ” 

“Nan, what a queer girl you are,” Selma said, tapping 
her cheek .caressingly. “ Most girls would be content to 
take the goods the gods provide. I admire your independ- 
ence, my dear; but. Nan, it is harder than you think for 
a young woman without training or experience to get a 
place here where she can earn money. If you were com- 
petent to teach, or to do typewriting, or short-hand, or 
painting and decorating, or bookkeeping; but you do not 
know anything about these occupations, and it takes time 
and money to learn them. ” 


KAK HAGGAllD. 


67 


Nan^s eager little face clouded over. She had no money. 
She could only get it by selling those acres of rocky and 
scantily timbered land, and she could not sell these, Selma 
had assured her, until she was married. Was marrying as 
difficult to achieve as getting a situation? she wondered. 

Nan’s ideas about marriage were very vague. She had 
never known any people who were living in the double state; 
her few friends had been widowed, or in elderly single 
blessedness. She had never spent a day under the roof 
with any married people until now, and it was impossible 
to think of Selma as a wife. The term was mockery, as 
applied to her. 

So Nan’s ideas of marriage had come only from old-fash- 
ioned novels. Judging from these, it was the final and 
blissful bringing together of two congenial souls, who 
henceforth had no more cares or tribulations. They 
married, and were happy ever after.” Marriage must, 
then, be a delightful consummation, apart from the fact 
that it gave an orphan girl a right to sell her heritage and 
obtain some money of her own. Clearly, I must 
marry,” thought little Nan. ‘‘ But can I? Only hero- 
ines marry, who are beautiful and accomplished, and have 
golden hair and violet eyes and snowy little hands. Alas! 
I am not a heroine. I don’t think any one will ever marry 
me — any one I could love.” 

And then Nan thought of the heroes she had read about 
and pictured to herself — the tall, gallant, handsome lovers, 
brave and tender, and intellectual and noble. But Mrs. 
De Lacy had told her the day of such grand beings had 
passed long ago. Men were no longer as in the good old 
times. Doubtless they were now ^all like Edmund; and 
assuredly Edmund was handsome, if he was not pale and 
intellectual looking. She looked at him closely as he came 
up with her shawl, that Selma had sent him for. He was 
a little too red and heavy looking; but what a round, white 
throat and beautiful, glossy hair he had ! And his eyes — 


68 


KAISr HAGGARD. 


they were certainly blue; but — well, she was a little goose, 
no doubt, for feeling as though she would like to draw 
back from him whenever he looked at her. No doubt he 
was as nice as any other young man of the present race. 
If he was not as gentle and courteous in his manner as 
Professor Slow, why, that must be because Professor Slow 
was a man of those ‘‘good old times Mrs. De Lacy 
talked about. Edmund had called him a queer old fogy. 
Edmund was much handsomer, and Edmund was young 
— the first young companion Nan had ever had. The 
mysterious magnetism of sex and age drew her to him, 
while some higher instinct repelled her from him. But 
this higher instinct was silenced by the art of Selma in 
showing the best side of her son, and in throwing a glamour 
around him by well-gotten-up allusions to his good and 
picturesque traits. 

Edmund was put upon his best behavior during these 
days. Selma kept a close and constant watch upon his 
movements. She would give him no money to buy any- 
thing to drink, and she doled out to him a sparing allow- 
ance of whisky with her own hands. He was furious, but 
he was deadly afraid of his mother. He knew she was his 
only de23endence. If she did not . give him money he would 
starve, and he would have nothing to drink — which was 
worse. He had just sense enough to see that things were 
at a crisis, The old chap, as he called his step-father, was 
on the eve of failure, and his mother was scheming how to 
feather her nest before the crash came. How that little 
country girl Nan, who had no money, could help to for- 
ward this scheme was beyond his comprehension. But 
Selma knew what she was about; Selma was as smart as 
they make them. So the thought ran in liis dull 
brain. 

As to marrying Nan — which his mother declared he 
must do—he did not like the idea. He thought himself 
quite superior to “ that little greeny,’" as he called her. 


NAN HAGGARD. 


69 


She didn’t have half the “ go ” that Cora had. Oora was 
a Minorcan girl, the daughter of the overseer on Lost 
Island. She was older than Edmund, and she had seen a 
good deal of ‘‘ life.” She had run away with a sailor and 
came to the city, where she was a waitress in a beer saloon. 
Afterward she sung and played on the banjo on the stage 
of a beer garden where Edmund was a frequent visitor. 
When he was sent to Lost Island by Selma — who did not 
know what else to do with him — Cora went, too, made up 
with her ‘‘ pappy,” and took the head of the house at the 
island. Mrs. Brent found her installed as mistress there 
when she visited Lost Island, after she had conceived in 
her fertile mind the idea of sending Nan there to get her 
out of the way — Nan, her husband’s heiress-ward, whom 
she had not seen as yet. She and Cora had what Edmund 
called ‘‘a devil of a row.” She ordered the girl out of 
the house, but Cora flatly refused to go. 

Then, with her usual skill at scheming, she invented a 
plan for getting rid of her. She played on the ignorance 
and credulity of the girl and her father, and caused them 
to receive a letter purporting to come from Cuba and re- 
lating that a fortune was left them there by a distant rela- 
tive. She had gleaned some of their family history from 
their talk, and she knew the names of the rich kin they 
boasted of having. 

Old Gasker’s daughter went to Cuba, and Edmund was 
left forlorn. Selma gave instructions what course to pur- 
sue in case Cora returned, and also what to do if Edmund, 
as was probable, should return to Lost Island with a bride. 
He must have everything in readiness for her. • He must 
see that she was well treated and had everything possible 
for her comfort, but on no account must she be allowed to 
leave the island. If he carried out these directions faith- 
fully, he would be well rewarded; if not, he would lose his 
place. The overseer swore he would do just as she said, 
even without the reward. He was under the spell of this 


70 


NAK HAGGARD. 


fascinating woman. Who did not fall under it^ if she 
willed that they should be her slave? 

And so little Nan’s destiny was all cut and dried by her 
guardian’s wife before that subtle woman had even laid 
eyes on the orphan ward. Selma was surprised and dis- 
concerted when she. first saw the girl. She knew Nan had 
grown up in the backwoods without any advantages. She 
pictured to herself an ignorant girl, whom she could easily 
influence to do just what she wanted. Such a girl would 
be at once taken by Edmund’s fine clothes and good 
looks. She would feel honored by his attentions, and make 
no scruple about accepting him as her husband. 

Selma had found the little country girl to be of quite 
different material. Nan was even more innocent, more 
ignorant of the world than she had expected or believed it 
possible a girl of sixteen could be, but Haggard’s orphan 
daughter was true to the good blood in her veins. She 
had fine instincts, that made her feel — though she could 
not explain why — that this well-dressed, fine-looking 
young man was not a fit mate for her. It was not that 
Nan thought herself superior to him. In her humility 
and ignorance she thought she was a most inferior little 
being— without accomplishments, with little education and 
no beauty, according to her high standard. All heroines 
she had read about had Grecian noses and were tall and 
stately, and could play and sing and dance divinely. Nan 
thought herself wofully lacking in attractions. 

The repulsion she felt at times toward Edmund was 
purely a sphitual instinct. She did not understand it. She 
blamed hersalf for her ingratitude and did her best to re- 
sist it. 

They went to the park that bright sunshiny day, and in 
the afternoon Selma took Nan with her on a little shop- 
ping excursion. While she was busy in one part of the 
store, looking at laces. Nan, who sat before the ribbon 
counter, amused herself by watching the deft-fingered way 


NAN- HAGGARD. 


71 


tlie shop-girl, who had waited upon Selma, was rolling up 
the bright silken strips and putting them in place. Then 
she saw her turn to a customer, sell her yards upon yards 
of ribbon, mark down the sum it came to, with some 
trouble in getting it right, and biting of the nether lip and 
knitting of the brow over some fractional figures. Nan, 
though she had no love for arithmetic, had a thorough 
knowledge of its methods — so far as the professor had 
taught them — and she did the sum in her head, while the 
shop-girl was puzzling over it and biting the end of her 
pencil. She ventured to tell the result to the 3’’oung lady, 
who flushed a little, but set it down at once, and when the 
purchaser was gone, said to Nan: 

Thank you. I get bothered and forget all I know 
sometimes. It^s tiresome, standing here all day, waiting 
on people, and half of them are so hard to please.-’’ 

But you get paid for it — you have regular wages?” 
asked Nan, who was questioning with herself whether she 
could not do such work as this without experience and 
training. 

Yes, I am paid, of course— though six dollars a week 
isn’t much wages; but, little as it is, there are plenty of 
girls to run after it. The proprietor turns off applicants 
every day.” 

Nan’s heart sunk. 

‘‘Is it so hard to get a situation to do any kind of 
work?” she said. “ I ask because I thought of trying.” 

“ You? Well, you will have to push and scramble and 
work every kind of dodge to get a place in this city. If 
you ever did anything of the kind, you’d get heartsick 
over it. Why don’t you marry? That’s better for one of 
your sort than trying to support yourself.” 

So even this stranger advised her to marry. It seemed 
the only goal held out to her. 

“ Isn’t that young man that came in with you a beau of 


72 


NAN HAGGARD. 


yours? He looked sweet at you^ I’m sure,, and he’s quite 
swell.” 

‘‘Quite what? I don’t understand!” Nan asked with 
such evident innocence that tlie girl smiled. 

“You don’t know slang?” she said. “ I guess you are 
from the country. I mean he’s very nice looking. A girl 
wouldn’t mind marrying such a looking man as that.” 

She judged him from his good clothes and flesh-and- 
blood good looks; but even this shop-girl would have taken 
his measure before she had talked with him half as much 
as Nan. She would have said to some girl comrade: 

“ That fellow is a sap-head, for all his swell looks. He’s 
n. g. He’d never earn enough money to pay for his 
drinks. A girl would carry her geese to a poor market if 
she married him.” 

So much for knowing the world. 

But poor Nan knew only as she had read of it in old- 
fashioned romances, and she said to herself: “Edmund 
must be all that is nice. If I must many — ” and here 
her thought was drowned in a tide of blushes and a flutter- 
ing of the heart — half shuddering fear, half pleasure. 

At that instant Edmund came in. He had been to buy 
tickets for the play that night. For the first time. Nan 
was to go to the theater. She was to see a play by that 
William Shakespeare whom she knew only through a big 
moth-eaten volume in Mrs. He Lacy’s collection. 

Edmund came toward her, with the tickets in his pocket, 
and a bouquet of white roses and valley lilies in his hand. 
Selma had instructed him what to get. Nan looked at 
him with a new emotion — an emotion that brought a tide 
of crimson into her cheeks and made her drop the long- 
lashed lids over her brown eyes. The shop-girl smiled and 
winked at the floor- walker, who nodded comprehendingly. 

“ They think we are sweethearts,” Edmund whispered, 
as he put the flowers in her hand. Nan did not know 
what to say. She felt the mixture of pleasure and vexa- 


KAJT HAGGARD. 


73 


tion. She tooh the bouquet and buried her burning face 
in the flowers. Selma came up at that moment and 
argued hopefully from her blushes. 

Her agitation continued the rest of the afternoon. Her 
fingers trembled as she dressed to go to the theater. She 
felt as though something fateful — either good or ill — were 
impending over her. Surely we are warned by some in- 
stinct when we are approaching a crisis in our lives. 

Selma was putting some final touches to her toilet, when 
a card was brought to her. It was for her husband, but 
she had instructed all cards and letters for him to be 
brought to her. She glanced at the bit of pasteboard, and 
the color left her cheeks. The name, she read upon it was 
that of a man who represented the parties that were so 
anxious to buy the Haggard property. He had called 
twice before. The first time he had seen Stephen Brent 
only. Selma, listening on the other side of the half-closed 
door, had found out the object of his visit. She clinched 
her hand with furious chagrin, when she heard her hus- 
band, in answer to the man^s question: Where is your 
ward at present?’^ tell him where Han could be found. 

Idiot she said to him after the capitalist had gone, 
saying he would call again — for Stephen Brent had given 
him no satisfactory reply about selling the land. Why 
did you tell him where the girl was? Why couldn’t you 
have sense enough to say she was in a convent-school at 
Paris— or Nova Zembla? HeTl go straight down there 
and see her. He may marry her, if he has no wife, or 
have his son to marry her. At any rate, she will find out 
that the land is of value — ” . 

‘‘ He would have found out where she was without my‘ 
telling. He is going to Haggard Creek the day after to- 
morrow.” 

He would not have asked about her if he had thought 
she was away. He goes down there day after to-morrow, 
you say. Well, when he goes he will not find her there. 


V 


74 KAK HAGGAKD. 

I will go to Haggard Creek to-morrow and take Nan Hag- 
gard away/^ 

She had made good her word; she had gone to Haggard 
Creek and had brought Nan away. 

When the capitalist — Wilson by name — came to Miss 
Rachers and asked to see Miss Nan Haggard^ he learned 
that she had gone to her guardian’s, in the city. He asked 
some further questions, and found out that Ste23hen Brent 
had taken no notice of his ward for ten years, and that his 
present interest in her was a matter of surprise to Miss 
Rachel and of suspicion to Mrs. De Lacy. That shrewd 
old gentlewoman had made a visit to Miss Rachel on this 
very day — the first she had been known to make for years 
— on purpose to ask about Nan. She had hoped to get a 
letter from the girl as soon as she arrived in the city, giv- 
ing her the street and number of Stephen Brent’s house; 
but no letter had come. 

Selma could have told why. 

Mrs. De Lacy had quite a talk with Mr. Wilson, and 
gleaned from him that the Haggard land had recently been 
prospected for gold, with promising results, and that the 
party he represented, taking into consideration the fact 
that there was already a mine upon the land, were prepared 
to pity a liberal price for it. They had already approached 
Mr. Brent on the subject, but he had given no positive as- 
surance that he would sell the land. Nan, according to 
the law of the State, would be of age in two years, and it 
was right she should be consulted. 

No doubt,” said Mr. Wilson, ‘‘ her guardian has sent 
for her for that purpose.” 

Mrs. De Lacy shrugged her shoulders. 

‘‘ Perhaps,” she said, in a doubtful voice; and she sat 
down at the little table where Nan had been wont to scrib- 
ble her verses and bits of stories, and wrote the girl a let- 
ter, while Mr. Wilson was eating pears fi-om Miss Rachel’s 
orchard — a letter that told her the good news that she was 


NAK HAGGARD. 


75 


an heiress, and bid her look to her own interest and get an 
honest lawyer to conduct the sale of her land, if, in his 
opinion, the terms were good. Then she gave the name 
and address of a lawyer whom she had known in his 
younger days, and believed to be at once shrewd and hon- 
est. 

This letter she gave to Mr. Wilson, asking him to de- 
liver it to Nan in person. She had taken his measure, and 
believed him to be a man who could be safely trusted to 
fulfill a request. He had told her that he would go to 
Stephen Brent’s as soon as he returned to the city. 

Mr. Wilson had Mrs. De Lacy’s letter in his pocket this 
moment as he stood in the parlor waiting for a response to 
the announcement of his presence. 

Presently there came in, not the shambling Stephen 
Brent, with his restless, absent-minded look and uncer- 
tain, hesitating speech, but a beautiful woman in evening 
dreks, with a bright, cordial manner. 

She excused the non-appearance of her husband. He 
was indisposed, she said — really quite ill. He was in bed, 
and unable to see any visitor; but he had commissioned 
her to say that he had been favorably considering the sale 
of the land and the mine, and thought they might come 
to terms. He had consulted with Miss Haggard, and she 
was willing to sell the land, anxious, indeed, for she was 
the most conscientious little girl in the world, and she 
was eager to pay her indebtedness to her guardian. 

Mr. Brent had advanced her father money to work Dead 
Hopes Mine, ^d had taken a mortgage on the land which 
had never been closed. 

It was impossible to doubt the truth of this communica- 
tion, coming from a lovely woman who looked you full in 
the face with eyes as frank as they were bright. 

Mr. Wilson asked to see Miss Haggard. He had a letter 
for her from one of her old friends of Haggard Creek. 

‘‘ It is, no doubt, Mrs. De Lacy. She was very kind to 


7 (> 


NAK HAGGARD. 


our little girl/’ said Mrs. Brent. ‘‘ I am sorry Nan is not 
at home. She has gone into the country for a few, days, 
with a lady friend of mine and her daughter. There is to 
be a garden-party at my friend’s beautiful country place^, 
and afterward a hunt, I believe.” 

Mr. Wilson looked disappointed. 

“I am anxious to meet Miss Haggard,” he said. 
“ When will she return, and when can we hope to settle 
this matter, the sale of the land? The time of business 
men is money, you know.” 

Surely I know that,” Selma answered, smiling. 

Then she stood in thought for a minute. She was in 
mortal terror lest Nan should enter the room, though she 
had given the servant directions she was not to be dis- 
turbed in her business interview with the visitor. She 
said to herself : 

I must act at once. What is to be done must be done 
quickly. Delay is fatal. Nan Haggard must be married 
to Edmund, her gold-lands must be sold to her guardian, 
and she must be on the sea before two days go by. Two 
days, indeed ! The steamer that touches near Lost Island 
will leave day a|ter to-morrow morning, and Nan Haggard 
must go in it as Edmund’s wife. If she stays here she will 
know she has been defrauded. She will have meddlesome 
friends who will help her to expose and prosecute the de- 
frauders. ” 

These considerations passed swiftly through Selma’s 
brain as she stood before the capitalist, who, though a hard , 
practical man, could not help admiring the grace and 
charm of the pretty woman in garnet and gold, with the 
filmy laces hardly veiling her white bosom. In half a min- 
ute she had determined what she would do. 

‘‘ I know how precious time is to you men of large enter- 
prises — the time we women study how to kill gracefully,” 
she said with her winning smile. So I promise to have 
Miss Haggard here, and hers and her guardian’s mind 


XAK ITAGGARD. 


77 


fully made up as to the proposition you have put before 
them^ in three days from now. To-day is Tuesday. On 
Friday morning, if you will call, you will not be put off 
by any indecision.’’ 

He bowed. 

“ I shall be prompt,” he said. 

He was putting Mrs. I)e Lacy’s letter in his pocket when 
she said: , 

Oh! the letter. Nan will be glad to get it. I will 
send it out to her to-day, with some articles she will need.” 

She held out her hand, and Mr. Wilson, though he had 
promised to give the letter to no one but Nan, was fain to 
put it into the pretty pink palm of that white hand with 
its round jeweled arm. Surely it could make no differ- 
ence. That old lady had seemed very queer and suspicious, 
but it was no doubt the cynicism of cranky age. 

When the would-be buyer of Dead Hopes Mine had van- 
ished through the door, Mrs. Brent gave a great sigh of 
relief. 

If that girl had chanced to come in, all would have 
been lost,” she said to herself. Then she tore open Mrs. 
De Lacy’s letter and ran her eye over its contents. 

It is as I thought; she congratulates Nan on being an 
heiress, and adv^ises her to put herself into the hands of an 
honest lawyer to see that all is done squarely — more than 
intimating that we have designs upon her. Mrs. De Lacy, 
you are a sharp, meddlesome old woman, and here goes 
your precious warning and advice.” 

She tore the letter into bits and then went quickly into 
the dining-room, where she found Nan dressed and look- 
ing so pretty with Edmund’s gift of white roses on the 
bosom of her pink-tinted gown, that Selma almost started, 
and the thought came to her: 

‘‘ What a sensation in society she would make, with her 
money and her wild-rose beauty and her bright quick 
mind! How many men would gather round her! She 


78 


KAN HAGGAKD. 


could have her choice of the best matches in the land — and 
I am about to marry her to a drunken half idiot. Well, it 
can not be helped. If fate had only given me a decent 
son.’^ 

Instead of remorse there was bitter rebellion in her 
heart as she looked at Edmund. He was carefully dressed, 
and so far as looks went he was well enough, but there was 
no soul in his violet eyes; his mouth, with its shading of 
silky mustache, was purely sensuous, and a wof ul lack of 
intellect was expressed in the forehead, whose disfiguring 
narrowness was partly hid by the chestnut curls his moth- 
er would not allow him to have cut. 

He had been drinking, too. His mother knew it at a 
glance. He was gazing at Nan in a way that would have 
excited her indignation if she had not been as innocent as a 
six-year-old child. 

Before they went to the theater liis mother called him 
into her room, shut the door, and said, impressively: 

‘‘ Now, I will tell you what you are to do to-night. In 
the first place you are not to taste a drop more of whisky, 
you are not to go out between the acts to get a drink, you 
are to be quietly attentive to Nan, but to talk very little, 
and not to comment on the play. If you do she will find 
out you are a fool. After we come home I will leave you 
alone with her a little while, and you are then to tell her 
that you love her far better than the Romeo of the play 
loved Juliet, only you have not Romeo’s eloquence to paint 
your love. You are to ask her to marry you, to say that 
you are going away, and can not bear to leave her, that 
you will be so lonely on that island, though it is so lovely 
in the blue, southern sea. Will you remember what I am 
saying?” 

‘‘ Of course. I don’t ever forget,” he answered, \vhich 
was true, for he had the wonderful memory that most half- 
witted creatures possess. (If you wish to see phenomenal 
powers of recollecting and repeating with parro*t-like glib- 


HAN HAGGARD. 


\ 

\ 




ness, but with no more comprehension than a parrot, go 
to an idiot asylum.) But I don’t want to marry, and I 
ain’t goin’ to that damned old island a foot!” he added. 

‘‘You are going to the island. You are going there day 
after to-morrow, and Nan Haggard is going with you as 
your wife!” 

“ I don’t want any wife. Cora will do for me.” 

His mother’s eyes gleamed dangerously. 

“ I see I will have to send you back to the Inebriates’ 
Home,” she said. “ I will have you taken there to-mor- 
row.” 


“ No, you won’t; I’ll kill myself first!” he cried. “ You 
promised you wouldn’t. I didn’t have enough to eat there, 
and nothing to drink — not a drop. I won’t go there. I’ll 
fight the man that tries to take me. You promised I 
should never go back.” 

“ And you promised to obey me. Now I offer you a 
lovely girl to have as all your own, and plenty of money. 
She will have money. ” 

“ How much? I thought she was poor?” 

“ She will have five hundred dollars of her own, and I^ 
will give you a thousand more if you will stay on the 
island for six months quietly, and then take Nan and go to 
Europe with her. Only six months on the island and you 
will have that lovely girl, with her sweet, fresh mouth, and 
her Avhite arms and shoulders. How pretty they are to- 
night! Will you do what I ask? If not, you know the 
alternative. You shall have no more money from me, not 
a cent, and you will be more than apt to find yourself in 
the Inebriates’ Home or the poor-house.” 

“ I’ll do as you say; I can't help myself,” he answered, 
doggedly. “ But you’ve got to put down your part of it 
in black and white — that iDromise to, give me a thousand 
dollars in six months. Fm not to be cheated,” he added, 
with a look that expressed his idea of his own sharpness. 

“ You shall have my written promise,” his mother an- 


80 


KAK HAGGAllD. 


^s^ered; ‘‘ and now let us go. Eemember how you are to 
,$ct to-night. Here is a pearl bracelet^, which you will give 
to Nan, as a birthday gift, tell her — her birthday was only 
a week ago.^^ 

She put the beautiful bracelet — it was taken from her 
arm, a gift from one of ^le many men who had loved her 
— into his hand. 

‘‘ Try to put it on gracefully,’^ she said, and tell her 
as you clasp it that the pearls are lost in the snow of her 
arm.” 

He carried out his lesson faithfully. He was really half 
in love with Nan in his animal fashion. He thought Cora’s 
coarse charms were superior to hers; but there was a novel 
attraction to his sensuous eye in her virginal, flower-like 
loveliness. He clasped the bracelet on her pretty arm, 
and said the little speech his mother had put into his 
mouth. He put the white- furred opera-cloak about her 
and fastened it under her chin, smiling down into her face. 
Then he drew her hand through his arm, and Nan went 
out with him and Selma, her heart beating lightly with 
happiness. . She was going to see her flrst play. She was 
going with the sweetest, kindest woman in the world, and 
with a handsome young man, whose looks were those of a 
lover — the flrst man who had ever made love to her — the 
flrst young man, indeed, she had ever spoken to. 


CHAPTER XI. 

THE BIRD FLUTTERS INTO THE TRAP. 

They had retiuTied from the theater, and were sitting 
awhile in the soft-lighted parlor before going upstairs. 
Nan was full of the play. The tender words of Juliet were 
thrilling in her ears. .For the first time she had heard the 
words of love spoken and seen impassioned looks and em- 
braces. The exalted sentiment of the play, its romantic 


KAH HAGGARD. 81 

ei^Yironment, and its tragic close made a deep impression 
u;^on lier young imagination. 

How happy they would have been if Fate had not 
darkly frowned between/^ said Selma. There is noth- 
ing so beautiful as the marriagl^ of two young people who 
love each other. Juliet was only fifteen; but how ripe 
and rare was her love!’^ 

She said this as she said almost everything — for a pur- 
pose. Then she gathered up her shawl and said she would 
go to her room and write a letter; and Nan must come to 
her presently. She had something to say to her; and it 
was not very late — only eleven. 

Nan was left alone with Edmund. The soft light from 
a rose-shaded lamp fell over her graceful figure, her piqu- 
ant face and white throat and arms. Her eyes were 
dreamy with emotions conjured up by the impassioned 
play. • 

Something less spiritual than music stirred the pulses of 
Edmund. In spite of his mother’s watchfulness he had 
contrived to take two drinks out of a flask he had in his 
pocket. He had taken the last after handing the two 
women from the carriage. He pretended he had a word 
to say to the driver. The whisky and the sight of Nan’s 
sweet young loveliness made him forget Selma’s admoni- 
tion to remember that Nan Haggard was a modest girl, 
and to be genteel and respectful.” He bent over and took 
lier hand as he sat by her, and said — as he had been told — 
that he loved her more tenderly than ever Eomeo loved 
Juliet, and that he wished he had Romeb’s eloquence that 
he might persuade her to love liim in turn; and then lie 
forgot his mother’s injunctions, and caught the girl in his 
arms and kissed her. 

It was the kiss of sensuous passion. His lips were hot 
with the fever of intoxication. Nan saw his look and 
started up, repelled, terrified. He jumped up and caught . 
her before she could run from the room. She struggled 



82 


KAK HAGGAED. 


to free herself; but he held her tightly, and his kisses 
rained fiercely upon her face. 

‘‘I hate you!^^ she cried; and with all her young 
strength — nerved by terror and indignation — she pushed 
him from her and ran from the room. 

“I’ll have you yet! You shall belong to me! See if 
you don’t!” he called after her, all his indifference merged 
into keen desire by her resistance. 

She ran upstairs and burst into the room where Selma 
stood at the open door, anxious for the result of the inter- 
view. She was dismayed at the sight of Nan’s hashing 
eyes and white, agitated face. 

“ He has insulted me! I will not forgive him!” cried 
the girl. 

Selma’s face darkened. She felt that all her hopes had 
been swept away. But the next instant she said to herself, 
“ Hate, with a girl young and inexperienced as this^ 
means very little. It may be the prelude to love.” 

“If he has done anything deliberately to offend you, I 
will not forgive him myself,” she said; and she went 
quickly out of the room. 

She went down- stairs to the parlor where Edmund was 
standing at the window. She caught him in the act of 
putting the flask back into his pocket. She sprung upon 
him like a tigress, wrenched the bottle from his hand, and 
threw it out of the window. 

“ Fool!” she hissed in his ear. “ You ivill spoil every- 
thing! You can not act decently, even for a few days. 
That was all I asked. Could you not make love like a 
gentleman?* That girl is not Cora Gasker!” 

“No; she ain’t half as good. Little spit-fire — putting 
on airs! I’ll make her give in. I’ll have her now in spite 
of herself. She can’t get the better of me!” 

“ You?” sneered the mother, in bitter contempt. But 
her expression changed as she saw a eontortion pass over 
his face. His high color deepened to purple, his eyes were 


NAN HAGGARD. 


83 


seii^ in a glassy stare on his mother. Her own eyes softened 
as ^e saw it. But she said sharply as she hurriedly un- 
fastened his collar and fanned him: You’ll die in one of 
these' fits, all because of that wretched drink. You won’t 
let it alone.” 

His glassy eyes stared at her in what seemed to her con- 
science a dumb rebuke. They seemed to say: 

‘‘ You taught me to love the drink. I took my first 
taste of it from your glass.” 

‘‘ There,” she said, as he breathed more easily. It is 
over now. This is only a slight attack; but it shows you 
what you may expect. You will not want whisky when 
you are on the island with Nan. 1 will make it right with 
her if you will do as I say. You are all straight again. 
You must ask Nan’s forgiveness. I will go and find out 
if she will see you.” 

Nan meanwhile was the prey of conflicting feelings. 
Her blood still tingled with resentment; but she had begun 
to wonder if she had not been unjust to Edmund. He had 
been so kind. He was the son of Selma, who was all that 
was sweet and noble. He had told her he loved her^ and 
then he had kissed her in a way that somehow made her 
shrink from him with anger and disgust. But had she 
not been wrong? Might not Edmund’s action have been 
what was customary and proper in society? Did it not re- 
pel her because she was so ignorant of the ways of men! 
This was no insult perhaps, only the usual way for men to 
show their love. And it was right to be loved — it was 
right and good and sweet — all the novels said so — the play 
to-night said so. If Edmund really loved her — she who 
was not a heroine, and had not velvet-pansy eyes and spun- 
gold hair — ought she not to be thankful and happy instead 
of showing such disdain? Oh! but how rude, how bearish 
he had been ! If he had only taken her hand and kissed 
that, or pressed one of her curls to his lips as he whis- 
pered he loved her, that woiild have been sweet, like the 


84 


NAN HAGGARD. 


love scenes in the romance. Yes, he was rude, and she 
had a right to be angry. She could not forgive him. 

This was her decision when Selma came in. 

I have had a scene with that boy,’’ she said, as she 
wiped her eyes and dropped into a seat. I abused him 
shockingly-— I was so angry; but he made me sorry for 
him. Nan, he is heart-broken because he has acted so. 
The simpleton loves you, and couldn’t restrain himself, 
that is it. He is just like all other men; but I told him 
you did not know the ways of men. You had lived out of 
the world in the high, refined air of dreams and books. 
He ought to have remembered what I told him. Now he 
is punished for it — and justly too. He has made you 
angry — made you hate him — and he shall go away at 
once!” 

Oh, Mrs. Brent! Oh, Selma!” cried Nan, in conster- 
nation, don’t send him oS because of me. I forgive 
him. I don’t really hate him. No doubt I was foolish 
and ignorant. Don’t blame him too much!” 

I do blame him. What business has he to fall in love 
in such a desperate headlong way? I’ll cure him. I’ll 
send him to Lost Island in disgrace day after to-morrow. 
If he is lonely and miserable there, he may blame himself. ” 

You will send him there because of me? Now you 
make me miserable. I forgive Edmund. ' I don’t hate 
him. I was foolish and oversensitive. Let me go and tell 
him I forgive him, and that you will not send him away!” 

‘‘ He must go away, not only to cure him of his mad 
love for you, but because expenses must be cut down. He 
can do nothing here. On the island he can superintend 
the cane and fruit fields. You are as one of the family. 
Nan; and I may tell you that we are on the verge of ruin. 
We will soon have everything swept from us.” 

‘‘ And you have been buying me so many things. You 
are supporting me, keeping me in idleness, and — I can do 
nothing — can not even sell my land unless — ” 


HAGGARD. 


85 


She stopped, remembering if she had not repelled Ed- 
mund; if she had consented to marry him she could sell 
the land and have some money of her own. 

Selma was saying: 

‘‘Yes, we shall be bankrupt; and Mr. Brent will have 
to begin again, wrecked as he is by that hurt.’^ v 

“ That hurt in Dead Hopes Mine! I and my father 
have been a curse to him,’^ thought Nan, and a passion of 
regret and distress swept over her. She felt humbled to 
the dust. What was she that she had scorned Edmund's 
love? She and her parents had done harm enough in this 
man's family, now she must wound the hands that had 
been stretched out to her with kindness and bounty. She 
burst into tears. 

“ Let me go down at once and tell Edmund I forgive 
him," she said. “ Do, dear Mrs. Brent!" 

“Yes, you can go if you wish. It will relieve him. It 
will comfort him to think you do not hate him when’ he 
has gone. He hoped you might care for him — enough to 
be his wife — but that can not be, as he now sees." 

Nan did not reply to this. She did not know what to 
say. Her head was Avhirling, her heart beating tumult- 
uously. 

“ I will go to him," she said. 

“ Let me tell him 3^ou will see him," returned Selma. 
“ I am glad; he was so miserable." 

She found the “miserable" Edmund asleep on the 
sofa. She shook liim awake. 

“Nan is coming," she said. “ Do 3^011 make out you 
are distressed and penitent. Say you dare not ask her to 
forgive 3^ou, but you beg her to remember that it was be- 
cause you loved her so. You were carried away by your 
love. Lie here — on the sofa — till she comes to the door. 
Then get up and say what I have told you. After awliile 
you can talie her hand and press it and put it to your lips; . 
but don't dare to kiss her lips. Do you hear?" 


86 


NAK HAGGAKD. 


“ I hear. Plague on her touch-me-not ways! What’s 
a girl made for but to kiss? Am I to ask her to marry 
me?” 

Say you will be so lonely on the island, and that you 
will think of her and sigh for her all the time. Tell her 
the island is a beautiful place — with oranges and bananas, 
and fields of green cane, and trees full of paroquets,, and 
she could go sailing and fishing with you if she were 
there.” 

It’s a nasty, lonesome old snake den, and only that 
Co—” , 

‘‘ Hush! You will remember all I have said; and that 
if you do not mind me it will be the worst for you.” 

She left him, looking back as she went out, and think- 
ing, as she saw him lying on the lounge, pale from his re- 
cent slight seizure: 

If only he had as much brains as he has good looks!” 

‘‘ He is looking for you, Nan. He has taken your hard 
words terribly to heart.” 

Nan felt as though she were the culprit, as she glided to 
the door and saw him looking so pale with his hand over 
his eyes. 

He got up as she came to his side. 

‘‘ I dare not ask you to forgive me,” he began. 

She put her hand in his, and said: 

“ I forgive you with all my heart. I am so sorry you 
are going away. We will miss you.” 

I shall be so lonely on the island. I shall think of 
you all the time,” he said, repeating his lesson. ‘‘It’s 
away off, and so lonely. Away from everybody, and from 
you — that’s the worst.” 

“ Isn’t it a pretty place?” 

“ It’s a — da— I mean it’s a beautiful place. Sea all 
around it, oranges, bananas,; green and red j)aroquets. If 
you were there we could gather wild grapes, and fish, and 


KAK HAGGAED. 87 

go sailing, and hunt birds^ eggs, and row from one island 
to another/’ 

Why, that would be delightful, I would like that.” 

Would you? Will you go with me and keep me com- 
pany? Will you?” 

Yes, indeed,” began Nan, ‘‘ that is, if — ” 

But he did not wait for what was to follow upon her 
‘‘if.” 

“ Selma,” he called, “ Selma, come here, quick!” 

She had been standing on the stairs listening anxiously. 
She entered smiling. 

“ Good news!” exclaimed Edmund. “Nan has prom- 
ised to go with me to Lost Island.” 

Selma went up to her and caught up both her hands. 

“Nan, is it true? Have you promised to marry my boy? 
Dear Nan, you have made me so happy!” 

“Marry!” stammered Nan. “I did not say I would 
marry Edmund — only that I would go with him to the 
island.” 

“But you could not go unless you married him. Of 
course you know that, my dear. So you have really given 
him a promise to be his wife — and my daughter-^” 

“ I — I would like to think it over until to-morrow. May 
I not?” asked the poor child, feeling somehow as though 
she were being pushed over the brink of a precipice. 

“ Certainly,” Selma said, sweetly. “ Edmund shall 
write you a letter and tell his feelings and wishes more 
fully than he can in talking. He always expresses himself 
better with his pen. His is one of those reticent natures 
that words do not come to readily when they feel deeply.” 

“ But you won’t disapj)oint me? You won’t go back on 
your promise? You will go with me to the island?” cried 
Edmund, with real earnestness, catching her hand and 
holding it fast. 

Nan murmured something. She hardly knew what. 
She was trembling with opposing emotions. 


88 


KAK HAGGARD. 


‘‘I am SO glad you have forgiven my boy/’ Selma 
whispered as she kissed Nan good-night. The sight of the 
girl’s pale, troubled face ought to have wakened remorse 
in her breast, but if it did, she stifled it and went to her 
room to write the letter that Nan found on her plate next 
morning. Edmund was not there. He had taken a little 
ride into the country, Selma said, to look after some busi- 
ness. 

Nan read the letter that had Edmund’s signature to it. 

Her first love letter.! Every girl remembers that thrill- 
ing experience — the reading of her first love letter. 

Nan read hers with a sensation of surprise and delight. 
How beautiful, how passionate and poetic it was! Who 
would have dreamed that Edmund was capable of such 
exalted sentiment! 

I have indeed misjudged him,” thought Nan. How 
coidd she know that her lover could barely write a legible 
note, could not spell correctly, nor construct an intelligent 
sentence? 

He looked very handsome as he rode up to the gate on 
horseback that evening. Nan was at the window. He 
saw her and kissed his hand to her. He came into the house 
and spoke a few words to his mother in the hall, then went 
on into the sitting-room to Nan. 

She turned round as he approached, and he took her 
hand. 

“ Let me see if I can read my answer in your eyes. They 
look at me too softly to mean ‘ no,’ ” he said, repeating 
the words as Selma had just told him to say. 

You will not let me go to the island by myself?” he 
Avent on. You Avill go with me?” 

‘‘If you want me,” she said, blushing and shrinking 
from him in spite of herself as he dreAV her to him and 
kissed her — this time gently — as he had been charged to 
do. 

They were alone a very little while after dinner. His 


KAK HAGGARD. 


89 


talk and his manner again jarred upon Nan, and the anx- 
ious Selma, coming in, perceived it and carried the girl 
away. 

This last evening belongs to me, *’ she said. 

Never had this woman been so fascinating as she was to 
Nan that night. She was sympathetic, tender — even she 
seemed frank, for she said: 

‘"Nan, my love, I will not hide the truth from you. 
You deserve a better fate than to marry Edmund. He is 
poor, and can only offer you his love and a very humble 
home. You are good and pretty and clever. If you had 
money you might go into society and make a brilliant 
match. Edmund is full of faults. How could it be other- 
wise? He grew up in neglect. I had no time or means to 
spend upon him. 1 had to earn my bread and his own. If 
you can reform him. Nan, and make love work the won- 
ders it. is said to do, how happy, how grateful you will 
make me. I am sorry he has no home to take you to but 
this lonely island, but so it is. It is a lonely, out-of-the- 
world place. There are sugar and riOe fields upon it, and 
it is now our only unencumbered property. Mr. Brent sent 
Edmund upon it several months ago to look after the 
working of the plantation, but it was lonely for him. He 
would not stay. It will be different now. He will have 
you. He could not have a sweeter companion. But you, 
my little Nan, I am afraid you will be very lonely. I 
don’t intend you shall stay there long. As soon as our 
tangled money affairs are settled you shall come back out 
of that wilderness. Can you put up with only Edmund’s 
love and company until then?” 

“Can he put up with mine?” answered Nan. “You 
forget, dear Mrs. Brent, that I have not been used to hav- 
ing anybody to love me and keep me company. I have 
lived to myself all my life. Nobody ever cared for me 
but my teacher and Mrs. He Lacy, and she did not care 
very much, I am afraid, for she has never written to me. 


90 


NAN HAGGABB. 


I wish I could have had time to write and beg her to ad- 
vise me about — this — this marriage/’ 

Selma’s face clouded. 

“ Old people are not always the best advisers in such 
matters/’ she said. “ They are apt to be suspicious and 
cold-hearted. Have I not your interest at heart as much 
as Mrs. De Lacy can have?” 

‘‘You have not known me as long, and I could not talk 
to you quite so freely. Oh!” she said, her eyes suddenly 
filling with tears, “ I wish I could have earned my living 
by doing something. I think it would have been better. 
Or if I could have sold the Haggard Creek land and got a 
little money to pay for learning some business that would 
support me. It seems hard I could not sell it until I mar- 
ried. Can I sell it at once after I am married — to-mor- 
row? 

The girl’s lips trembled a little as she said “ to-mor- 
row.” Was it possible she should so soon be Edmund’s 
wife?” 

Selma hardly noticed it. She was too glad to have the 
conversation turn upon the sale of the land. She had just 
been thinking how she should introduce the subject. She 
said: 

“ I knew you would not have time to find a purchaser 
for the land before you left. So I have talked with your 
guardian about it, and he will buy it from you. He will 
give you ” — Selma hesitated a little and her voice was 
husky as she said it — “ five hundred dollars.” 

“Five hundred dollars!” The sum seemed enormous 
to Nan, who had never had five dollars in her life at a 
time. Indeed, she had never had a dollar in her posses- 
sion. Whatever money had been sent for her benefit had 
been received and laid out by Miss Kachel. 

“ Oh, Mrs. Brent! The land isn’t worth all that money 
— is it?” 

Selma winced. Expecting as she did to reap a harvest 


HAK HAGGARD. 


91 


of millions from the girl’s heritage, it was hard to look her 
in the eyes when she asked if it was worth five hundred 
dollars. But she answered, easily: Oh, yes, it is, I think. 
There is timber upon it, and there may be gold after all — 
who knows?” 

Nan shook her head. 

‘‘ I hope nobody will try to find it. It only brings bad 
luck,” she said; and then she fell to musing at the thought 
of having five hundred dollars all her own — no, it would 
be Edmund’s also. It would belong to him, as she would 
belong to him after to-morrow. He had said so when he 
kissed her that evening, and the words gave her a little fit 
of terror almost. Recalling them now brought the same 
feeling. She felt there must be something wrong. She 
looked piteously at Selma, and then she went and knelt 
down before her, and looking up into her face, said : 

‘‘You must not be vexed. You must not think me un- 
grateful and cold-hearted — my best, my only friend. I 
must confess something to you, because it lies heavy on 
my heart. I am afraid I will not make Edmund happy — 
because — because I do not think I love him as much as I 
ought. I can not feel glad to marry him. I shrink from 
it somehow, and that is not the right way to feel — is it? I 
know so little, nobody has told me anything, and I have 
never seen any married people. ” 

Selma changed countenance in spite of herself. Her 
lips dropped before the earnest, appealing eyes of the cliild; 
she felt a pang of remorse; her conscience cried out: 
“You are committing the sin of sins in ruining the life of 
this orphan child who trusts you so implicitly.” 

But the voice of selfish greed and passion was stronger 
than the voice of conscience. She could not meet the girl’s 
eyes. Her heavy white lids were still downcast as she drew 
Nan to her, and stroked her hair and brow with her velvet 
finger-tips. 

“ My dear Nan,” she said, “ you know nothing of real 


92 


NAN HAGGARD. 


life. You have lived in a world of ideal fancies and no- 
tions born of the romances you have read and of your own 
pure heart. People in this world do not love in the fer- 
vent, high-pressure way of those old-fashioned novels, and 
all girls feel that shrinking when they stand on the brink 
of marriage. It is the instinct of modesty — nothing more. 
Such fears do not last. You will recognize your destiny, 
as every woman does — to love, and to sacrifice for the sake 
of making the man she loves happier and better. In doing 
this she finds her own higher happiness. Every woman 
who loves and marries is in some sense a martyr, but this 
is her mission; in fulfilling it she makes herself nobler and 
happier. 

Selma’s sweet voice took a ring of earnest persuasive- 
ness. She really felt what she was saying — and she might 
have acted upon it had she married a man she loved. She 
let ambition lead her to sacrifice herself to the decrepit de- 
bauch e who was Edmund’s father. It had been her mis- 
take and her punishment twice to marry, for money, and 
to find the golden fruit turn to ashes in her grasp. 

But little ]^an knew nothing of this. She believed Selma 
Brent to be a good — a grand woman loyally striving to do 
her duty by a stricken husband and a son who was not all 
she could wish. 

But I may help to make him so — Selma says I may,” 
thought Nan; and she felt as though this fine destiny of 
woman, to reform and ennoble, was opening before her. 

‘‘ I will try to feel and to do as you think I ought, dear- 
est friend,” she said, returning Selma’s kiss in such a pas- 
sion of grateful tenderness that the woman’s cheeks tingled 
with shame at her own unworthiness. 

To silence self-rebuke she busied herself in packing 
Nan’s trunk and in putting into it various little presents 
— books in their covers, writing materials, drawing-pencils, 
and paints, studies for pictures — everything she could 
think of that might amuse her on the island. She would 


KAK HAGGARD. 93 

not let Nan help her; so the girl sat, in a kind of dream, 
watching Selma’s movements. 

When all was done, Mrs. Brent came up to her, and said: 

Now you must go to bed and to sleep, my sweet. Do 
not let any fears or doubts keep you awake. Troubles 
must come — disappointments must come to every cliild of 
earth — but I trust fate will be kind to you, my good, pure 
child.” 

She sighed and kissed her trusting victim, feeling herself 
worse than Judas, as she turned away and left Nan alone 
with her forebodings. 

She went into her son’s room. He was partly undressed, 
and was finishing a fourth bottle of beer. Selma had been 
obliged to let him have beer. She had refused to give him 
a cent of money for two days, and he had been unable to 
get his favorite stimulant. 

He had a plate of sausage and biscuit before him, and 
his mouth full of the same, which he was washing down 
with beer, when his mother came up and stood looking at 
him with disgust. 

‘‘ A charming -looking bridegroom for a nice girl!” she 
sneered. 

‘‘ Come now,” he grumbled, wiping his dripping mus- 
tache. If you haven’t any civiler talk than that for me 
you’d better stay out of here. You make a mighty fuss 
over that little white-faced thing. I ain’t to blame for 
marrying her. It’s yon7' doings.” 

She is as far above you as heaven above earth. If you 
do not treat her as she deserves, I will make you repent it 
as long as you live, do you hear?” 

She caught his arm and shook it fiercely as she looked 
down at him. 

“ What’s come over you?” he whimpered, frightened at 
her look. Who says I ain’t going to treat the girl well. 
I’ll treat her better’n she’s been used to. She’s only a lit- 
tle country-raised thing.” 


94 


NAN HAGGARD. 


You have promised not to get drunk and act like a 
beast, to be kind and attentive to Nan, and faithful to her, 
if you know what faithfulness means. You are to take up 
with no hussies like Cora Gasker. If I hear of her being 
on that island, you’ll get no thousand dollars from me.” 

‘‘ I’ve got your jDromise in black and white for that. I 
was too smart for you there, and there wasn’t a word in it 
about Cora.” 

It was sti]3ulated in the writing that you should be 
kind and faithful to your wife.” 

‘‘ I’ll be good enough to her. I’ll show her though I’ll 
do as I please with her when she is mine. I’ll break down 
all her skittish, keep-your-distance airs. I’ll let her know 
who she belougs to.” 

The look of brutish gloating in his soulless eyes made 
Selma’s blood burn with disgust. She went out hastily. 

“lam a wicked wretch,” she said to herself. “ I wish 
I had never begun this. It sickens me to the heart. IIow 
can I help it! This is my last throw for fortune and for 
love. I have had cruel failure every time I have tried to 
rise. This is the third time. There is luck in the odd 
number. The man I love, as I never loved in my foolish 
youth, would marry me if I were free and had money. 
Death will set me free in a little while, and a single bold 
move will give me money — more than I have dreamed of. 
Shall I shirk from this move because of weak scruples 
about its being right? There is no absolute right. Suc- 
cess is to the strong; that is what nature teaches. The 
hawk preys on the dove; that is according to nature’s laws. 
I don’t want to stick my talons deep into this little dove. 
I am sorry for her, but I am not defrauding her so much. 
She never knew what it was to have money. Poverty won’t 
hurt her as it would hurt me. But to marry Edmund! 
Yes, that is horrible! Why was such a beast given to me 
instead of a son I could have been proud of, one that would 
make that sweet girl happy? Well, there must always be 


HAGGARD. 


95 


a victim. I donH mean it shall be me if I can help it. I 
am in the whirlpool of circumstances. It is not I to be 
blamed, it is Fate.’’ 

She was walking about the room with a swift, gliding 
step. She stopped before a table and picked up a news- 
paper. 

If it had not been for that paragraph my heart would 
have failed me to-night. I could not have betrayed that 
motherless child. But I can not give him up. I will yet 
be the wife of Paul Olmstead.” 

She opened the paper and glanced down one of the col- 
umns. She set her teeth and uttered an exclamation of 
anger as she crumpled the paper in her hand and flung it 
on the floor. 

She caught up a pen and drew a sheet of paper to her, 
and wrote rapidly: 

I read among the on dits of a daily paper that the 
Hon. Paul Olmstead is very attentive to the heiress — Miss 

Vernon C . This may be only gossip. The Hon. 

Paul Olmstead has not forgotten his oath of fidelity to an- 
other woman, nor the fact that certain documents in the 
hands of that woman would, if made public, seriously in- 
terfere with his prospects for re-election.” 

She had begun to fold this sheet when she heard a groan 
in the room across the hall. She took up a candle and 
stepped lightly across the passage, and entered her hus- 
band’s room, shading the candle with her hand as she crept 
to the side of the bed where he lay asleep. She bent down 
and looked closely at his face. It was very white and 
haggard, with deep lines around the mouth. 

I can see it,” she said to herself. I can see the 
change Doctor Colton spoke of. The doctor declares he 
can not live longer than three months. Three months! It 
is not long to wait.” 


06 


KAN HAGGARD. 


She went back into her own room, and unfolding the 
letter she had written, added this postscript: 

Wait for me a few months longer, Paul, my beloved. 
In a little wliile 1 will be free, and rich — rich enough to 
carry out your ambitious plans. Only wait and be true — 
as I am true.^^ 

And at this very moment Nan was kneeling, in her 
white night-gown, by the bed and looking out at the stars 
she could see through her chamber window, while she 
prayed: 

“ Father! mother! look down from heaven and help me! 
If I am doing right, put these doubts and this shrinking 
from my heart; and if the step I am going to take is 
wrong, save me from it — save me, my sweet guardian an- 
gelsP’ 


CHAPTEE XII. 

A QUEER MARRIAGE. 

But Nan’s guardian angels did not interpose to prevent, 
her marriage. It took place the next" morning at nine 
o’clock, as Selma had willed it should, and half an hour 
later the bride signed away her birthright— that heritage 
of rocky acres which she believed to be worth so little — 
that she felt as though she was defrauding her guardian— 
that ghostly, trembling old man who gave her away at her 
marriage, sitting in his arm-ehair, but did not onee look at 
her while the eeremony went on. 

If she could have' interpreted the voiceless muttering of 
his pallid lips, they would have been these broken words: 

‘‘Anabel’s child — given to him — that drunken fool! 
This crime is worse than that other. AnabePs child robbed 
of her rights! Anabel, you can never forgive — God can 
never forgive!” 

She could not hear this unuttered revelation, nor could 


NAN HAGGARD. 


97 


she know of the scene between the husband and wife — such 
only in name — that liad taken place that morning — how 
the old man had refused to be present or to take part in 
what he called the black work of the next few hours 
— how Selma had to persuade with all her arts, and finally 
to threaten, and to pour down him, with the aid of Ed- 
mund, the drug that helped to make him passive under 
her will. 

She found need to administer some of the same nerve- 
deadener to Nan this morning. The girl had passed an 
almost sleepless night, and she was trembling in every 
limb. She burst into tears when Selma came in and spoke 
to her. She was sitting in her dressing-gown, looking pale 
and ill. Forebodings and shuddering repulsions possessed 
her, and she caught Selm^^’s hand, and said, wildly: 

Let me go out and earn my living. I am young and 
strong; I can work as a servant. I can do anything, 1 
am not fit to be married; I do not feel like a wife.’’ 

‘‘ It is too late,” Selma returned, looking down at the 
child that clung to her knees— ‘‘ it is too late. The li- 
cense has been bought, the magistrate and the witnesses 
will soon be here; everybody will blame and ridicule your 
childish changeableriess. It is too serious a matter for 
trifling and caprice. You have given Edmund your prom- 
ise; you have declared your intention to me and to your 
guardian. It is not like you to go back on your word; I 
thought you were more of a woman.” 

Alas! I am only a child— I feel it. I am weak, and 
I don’t know what is good for me. Forgive me, dear Mrs. 
Brent.” 

'' You are just timid and nervous— like all young girls 
about to be married. I will bring you a cordial— that will 
strengthen your nerves.” 

The “ cordial ” she brought Md the effect of stupefying 
the unhappy girl and paralyzing her will. Without a word 
more of protest she stood up and let herself be dressed for 


98 


KAN HAGGARD. 


the ceremony in a dark traveling-gown and hat. She let 
Selma remove with rose-water and powder the traces of 
tears, and even put a touch of rouge on her jmle cheeks to 
prevent the dark rings under her eyes from showing. 

She went through the short ceremony with the same 
quiet passiveness. The magistrate thought he had never 
seen so self-possessed a bride — or was she stupid? If so, 
she was matched by her bridegroom, thought the old law- 
yer, who alone, with Stephen Brent and his wife, were wit- 
nesses of the marriage. He had always transacted Mrs. 
Brent’s business, and was partially her confidant, as well 
as her platonic admirer. He felt sure she was at the bot- 
tom of this transaction, but it was not his place to show 
any sign. It was his part to stand by his lovely client, 
whose ambition and talent for scheming he knew. He was 
perfectly aware, too, that Edmund Hoyt was a drunkard, 
and half-witted, though such was the young man’s mem- 
ory and his parrot-like facility, for repeating what he caught 
from others, or was told to say, that he would pass as 
merely eccentric and an oddity among people wdio saw him 
only a short time. He could even assume a certain owl- 
like dignity; and Selma often said, if he would keep his 
, mouth shut and let liquor alone, that people would make 
the mistake of supposing he had good sense, as he surely 
had good looks. 

He chose to be very dignified on this occasion. He 
looked at pale little Nan and felt that he was sacrificed by 
his mother. He was too good for a green country girl. 
She had not half the go ” in her that Cora had. But 
she had white shoulders and a pretty figure, and a sweet- 
looking mouth for kisses, and she was now going to be- 
long to him, and he would put down her touch-me-not 
airs ” — that was one consoling thought. Another was that 
he would have some money. Selma had promised to give 
him a hundred dollars of the sum he would receive as 
Nan’s husband and legal agent when she was paid for her 


KAlSr HAGGARD. 


99 


land. He had never liad so much money in his possession 
at a time. Selma had doled out the dollars to him spar- 
ingly enough, knowing how they would be spent. lie 
congratulated himself on the sharpness he had shown in 
outwitting his mother in the whisky matter. He had 
ordered a large case of his favorite drink to be sent to the 
steamer this morning, payable on delivery. With a part of 
Nan’s hundred dollars he could settle the 'bill. The rest 
of the money his mother had insisted on giving to Nan, 
whom she charged to keep it in her own possession. 

Such were the thoughts and feelings of the man into 
whose keeping was given this delicate-souled girl, with her 
gifted mind and her pure and tender heart. 

There was in her the making of a noble woman. Her 
plastic nature was capable of being molded to fine ends, 
but into what hands had it been given? 

The vessel would leave at eleven. ‘ So after a breakfast, 
which nobody eat excej^t Edmund, the lawyer and magis- 
trate, the farewells were said, and ' the newly wedded pair 
drove away. 

Then it was noticed that Stephen Brent had fallen down 
in a faint. When she went up to him to say good-bye. 
Nan, moved by pity at the sight of his haggard, stricken 
face, had bent down to kiss him, with a sudden sense that 
he was the only link between her and her dead parents — 
the only semblance of father or guardian she had known. 
But he drew back and put up his shaky hand. 

Don’t!” he muttered. Don’t kiss me. I couldn’t 
stand it. I — ” 

Selma came up quickly, with a whispered word to Nan, 
and a touch of the hand on her husband’s arm. That 
touch looked as though it were a gesture of soothing, but 
the old lawyer knew better. 

“ The cat!” he said to himself, with a smile. The 
feline creature — with her velvet-sheathed claws! . Hand- 
some leopardess that she is, she hasn’t changed her spots 


100 


NAN HAGGARD. 


since I knew her firsts an ambitious adventuress; as poor 
as she was pretty. She’s poor still, though the crash hasn't 
quite come; but she’s got some scheme in her subtle brain 
for getting on her feet again. Yes, cat-like^ she always 
falls on her feet. There’s something under this queer 
marriage, and that quick, trumped-up sale and transfer of 
the girl’s estate to Brent. I’ll get it all out of her, deep 
as she is. She will have to. get me to help her through.” 

Stephen Brent was restored to consciousness and put to 
bed. 

‘‘It’s odd if he ever rises from it,” said his physician to 
Mrs. Brent. He was well aware his words carried no pang 
to her heart. She heard him with the look of concern that 
decency required, but in her busy brain she was revolving 
the question whether she should sell the Haggard Creek 
lands to the company next day, or whether she should only 
allow them to purchase a share in the mine. In a few 
months she felt sure — before the next Congress should 
close in Washington — she would be free — the rich and 
beautiful widow of Stephen Brent. She would be at the 
capital— in some quiet eddy of the social whirl, as became 
her weeds— and the Hon. Paul Olmstead would be at her 
feet. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

ON SHIPBOARD. — BRIDE AND GROOM. — A QUEER WEDDING 
JOURNEY. 

Nan was on deck, enjoying the new experience of being 
on board a vessel — of being borne on the heaving bosom of 
that ocean she had so often read of and pictured. She had 
seen it from the quay once or twice during the few days 
she had been in the city, but this was the first time she 
had been upon the water. 

The novelty of the experience and the beauty of the 
scene made her forget herself for awhile. All around her 


KAN HAGGARD. 


101 


stretched the expanse of blue-green water sparkling in the 
sun, with here and there a wreath of smoke from a proudly 
riding steamer, or a cloud of canvas from some large ship, 
or a silvery gleam, as of a great bird’s wing, of a single 
sail against the blue sky. , 

Yonder was a long, green island, and yonder in the mel- 
low distance the undulating coast-line. On a small island 
near the coast stood a tall, white light-house — the guardian 
giant whose bright eye sleeps in the day — and from a sharp 
elbow of land rose a gray stone fort. Nan thought it must 
be a castle; it looked like the pictures of castles. She 
ventured to ask Edmund, who stood near her smoking a 
cigar he had bought at the bar below after swallowing the 
“ three fingers ” he had called' for. The stimulant was 
working in his weak brain, and he had assumed the conse- 
quential air which with him was the sign of incipient 
drunkenness. He thought all the passengers were observ- 
ing him. Some of them must know him to be the step- 
son of the (reputedly) rich Stephen Brent. Did they know, 
too, that he was just married to this nicely dressed girl at 
his side, and that his pocket-book was stuffed full of ten- 
dollar bills? 

He was rather proud of his bride. True, she was not his 
ideal of a fine girl. She wasn’t a stunner. She didn’t 
have snapping black eyes and red cheeks, and walk and 
talk with a dash, and say pert, slangy things, and giggle 
and ogle, as did the beer-garden divinities he had bowed to; 
but she was a nice girl — Selma said so, and Selma knew all 
about gentility. He’d back her on that. But, in spite of 
Selma’s praise, the fact remained that Nan was a country 
girl, and he felt his superiority. 

Castles?” he said. Why, there ain’t any castles, 
only in fairy-tales! That’s a fact. Don’t stare around so. 
Nan; people will know you’ve never been on the water be- 
fore. They’re looking at you now as though they thought 
you were green.” 


102 


NAN HAGGARD. 


Nan’s enjoyment of the lovely prospect was dashed at 
once. She stole a glance, for the first time, at the peo- 
ple ” on deck. She colored vividly as she saw that two 
pairs of eyes were, as Edmund said, turned upon her. She 
had too humble an opinion of herself to see that they were 
looking at her with pleased interest, admiring the slender 
grace of her figure and her bright, child-like enjoyment of 
the scene. 

They stood not far from her, those two, and they were 
objects of unusual attraction themselves. One was a man 
of thirty or more, with a distinguished-looking air, finely 
chiseled features, grave eyes, gray in color, and a mouth, at 
once firm and tender in expression, shaded by a brown 
mustache. A tinge of melancholy, half cynical, half kind- 
ly, overspread 4iis face. The kindly look predominated 
when he spoke to his companion — a young man, a mere 
boy indeed — dark, beardless, with dark-brown curling hair 
and features of almost girlish beauty, rather haughty and 
imperious m their expression, like a pretty sj^oiled child. 

But his smooth cheek was hollow and the color upon it 
had a feverish brightness. His eyes were also too brilliant 
for health, and his graceful figure was somewhat emaci- 
ated. He was all life and animation, however. He talked 
eagerly to the elder man, as he half leaned against him, 
while they stood watching the vessel cut her way out of the 
bay into the open sea. 

Presently the elder man stepped across the deck and 
brought a chair. 

Sit down. Hartley. You will tire yourself standing,” 
he said. 

The young man was about to obey, when he suddenly 
turned to Nan, who was standing (Edmund had not 
thought to bring her a seat), and said: 

Will you not take this chair?” At the same time he 
shot a glance of rebuke at the stolid, self-satisfied compan- 
ion of this pretty girl. 


KAK HAGGARD. 


103 


“ Must be her brother/’ he thought, though he 
doesn’t look like her a bit. He’s too indifferent to be a 
sweetheart.” 

Nan declined the seat with pretty thanks, but Hartley 
left it beside her, notwithstanding his grave companion 
brought another chair, and made him sit down in it while 
he leaned upon the back. 

Edmund had not at all seen the rebuke conveyed in the 
glance of the boy’s bright, scornful eyes. He smoked on 
composedly, saying a few words now and then to Nan, and 
then went below and got another drink. While he was 
gone Nan availed herself of the chair that had been offered 
her, and when he came back, he placed another seat quite 
close to her and sat down. His breath came to her, hot 
and strong with liquor, and she looked at him and sud- 
denly remembered that Selma had warned her that drink 
was his besetting sin and begged her to use her influence 
to get him to break off the habit. 

She had never known a man who drank. She had only 
known of one such case in the quiet and strait-laced neigh- 
borhood of Haggard Creek. She had seen this man fall 
from his wagon to the ground when drunk, and she had 
heard of his beating his wife and trying to kill one of his 
neighbors. He had been turned out of the church and 
ostracised in the little community. 

When Selma spoke to her of Edmund’s propensity to 
take too much stimulants now and then,” she had not at 
all imagined the extent of this propensity. She did not in 
the least connect Edmund’s habit with that of shabby and 
grizzled Farmer Blake. 

But when she caught the strong smell of whisky and 
turned to him and saw his flushed face and his eyes that 
were taking on the glazed, brutish look of intoxication, 
her heart sunk within her. 

‘‘ Edmund,” she said, earnestly, please don^t drink 


104 


NAN HAGGARD. 


any strong liquor. It will do you harm. I wish you would 
promise me not to drink at all.’^ 

Come, now,” he said, ‘‘ don’t go to scolding and nag- 
ging at me. Selma put that into your head. It’s just 
like her to do it. I won’t stand it from you. You’ve got 
to be sweet to me, to love me, and to do all I want you to. 
That’s what little wives have got to do.” 

He put his arm around her shoulclers and leaned his 
head close to hers as he spoke. Involuntarily she drew 
back. He frowned. 

‘‘ What the dickens are you scared of?” he said, petu- 
lantly. It’s time to leave off such airs.” 

‘‘ I’m not scared,” she said; but in truth something akin 
to terroi'^irred in her heart as she met his look. Invol- 
untarily she contrasted his face with the faces of the two 
young men who sat near them — those finely cut, refined 
faces lit with the light of intelligence. The misgiving 
came to her that Edmund Hoyt was not a fair type of the 
young manhood there was in the world. There were men 
who looked fit to be his masters. That was one standing 
there, the tall, grave-looking man with the kindly yet mel- 
ancholy and gently cynical eyes. She had caught his 
glance — instantly withdrawn — just now when Edmund 
spoke to her so harshly because -she drew away from his 
embrace. There was a puzzled, wondering expression in 
the look. She woidd have understood it if she could have 
heard the youthful Hartley say: 

^Yhat the mischief can that fellow be to that nice lit- 
tle girl? She is disgusted with him, and no wonder. He 
is half drunk as well as half a fool.” 

Edmund put his feet on the railing of the deck, lighted 
another cigar, and smoked away in offended silence. Nan 
stole a look at him — the man she belonged to — her legal 
master and lord, according to what she had been taught to 
believe was the wife’s duty to her husband. She felt that 
she must be very wicked, for she did not love this man. 


NAN HAGGARD. 


105 


she could not bear him to come near her. The glamour that 
Selma had managed to throw around him by her artful 
interpretation of all he said and did no longer existed. He 
was no longer under any restraint. He looked and acted 
his real self — his natural grossness and lack of intelligence 
increased by the stultifying effect of the whisky he had im- 
bibed so freely. 

Nan was horrified at the feelings she found she was en- 
tertaining for her husband. She tried to reason herself out 
of them. It was because she was not accustomed to him^ 
she said to herself. All girls felt this shrinking from their 
husbands when they were newly married. Selma said so. 
And he was not bad looking. He had handsome features 
aM blue eyes and chestnut hair. His manners were not 
refined, not like the manners of the two men who still sat 
near them= — too near, for the contrast was sharp and bitter 
to Nan; but he would improve. She could help him to 
reform-; his mother had told her she might do Edmund 
great good. She would try. It was her duty. If only he 
would not come so close to her and look at her as he did 
awhile ago. 

She began to talk to liim, prattling on about the beauty 
of the sea, and her delight at watcliing the waves simrk- 
ling, heaving- like living things joying in the sunshine. A 
large steamship was coming toward them, breasting the 
waves with such ease and grace that Nan forgot her 
troubles in the pleasure it gave her to watch the move- 
ments of the ship. 

With her eyes all a-sparkle she repeated: 

“ ‘ I saw him beat the surges under him 

And ride upon their backs. He trod the waters, 
Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted 
Each wave that met him.’ ” 

“ What’s all that?” muttered Edmund, looking at her 
with the superior dignity of a half-drunken man. 

Nan colored, and said: 


100 


NAK HAGGARD. 


“It is about Prince Ferclinand^s swimming, but the 
ship, as she ‘ trod the waters,’ put me in mind of it. It’s 
in Shakespeare’s play, ‘ The Tempest,’ you remember.” 

“ Where did you see that acted? You were never inside 
a theater until I took you,” he said. 

“ I did not see it played, I read it.” 

“ Head it?” he returned. “ Shakespeare isn’t to be 
read; it’s only to be played. It’s nothing but a string of 
questions and answers.” 

Nan was disconcerted. She wondered if this was the 
estimate people in the world put upon her beloved Shake- 
speare. 

She heard a laugh behind her — a short burst of gleeful 
ridicule. Edmund heard it too. He turned around. He 
was in the mood to pick a quarrel. 

“ What are you laughing at, jackanapes?” he demand- 
ed, looking at the young man with what he imagined to be 
great dignity. 

“ I was laughing at the conceited ignorance of a booby 
that said Shakespeare was not to be read,” answered 
Hartley. 

“ If you laugh at me again I’ll pitch you over this rail- 
ing,” said burly Edmund, glowering at the slight, boyish 
figure. 

“ Come on and try it,” cried the youth, jumping to his 
feet and making a step toward Edmund. “ Loose my 
arm, Thorne.” 

But Cyril Thorne kept a tight hold of the slender arm 
he had caught, and drew the boy back wntli force. 

Edmund had seemed in no hurry to meet the challenge. 

“It was none of your business to laugh. Nobody was 
talking' to you,” he growled. 

“ That is true,” said Thorne, quietly. “ Hartley, j^ou 
had no business to listen to or comment on a remark that 
was not addressed to )^ou. You owe the lady at least an 
apology.” 


KAK HAGGARD. 


107 


I would not hurt her feelings for anything/^ said the 
boy, turning his beautiful dark eyes upon Kan's distressed, 
half -frightened face. “I am sorry, for her sake, that I 
laughed; but really I couldn’t help it.” 

It’s well you apologized,” Edmund muttered. 

He resumed his seat. 

Thorne drew his young companion to the other side of 
the deck. 

‘‘ Our proximity embarrasses the girl,” he said. ‘‘ One 
can see she is mortified to death.” 

AVhat on earth is she doing in company with that 
lout?” Hartley queried, for the second time. ‘‘ What can 
she be to him? Surely not married to him?” 

‘‘ I think not. She looks like a child. And she is so 
timid and seems hardly acquainted with him. If they are 
married this must.be their bridal-tour — their honey-moon. ” 

“ For Heaven’s sake don’t talk of a honey-moon in con- 
nection with that- pair. It’s horrid mockery!” cried 
Hartley. ‘‘ I don’t believe they are married. It’s too 
absurd.” 

“If it is true there must be some underhand work in 
the business,” Thorne said, looking across at -the girl’s 
clouded young face, “ and I am thoroughly sorry for her.” 

Edmund, meanwhile,^ was feeling complacent. 

“ I’ve backed that dude out,” he said, putting up his feet 
on the railing and throwing himself back in his seat. 
“ I’ve run the pair of . them. They saw I wasn’t to be 
fooled with. Were you scared, little wife? You stick to 
me and you’ll be all right.” 

He put his arm around her and drew her close to him. 
She was silent and passive, except for an inward shrink- 
ing. She did not want to attract any more notice to them. 

Presently she said: 

“ I have a new magazine; would you like me to read to 
you?” 

“ Not now. You can read me to sleep in our state- 


108 


^TAN HAGGAED. 


room after dinner. I wish they'd hurry it up. I’m as 
hungry as a bear. What’s that you’ve got, the Century 9 
—that’s poor stuff. There no fun in that. I’ve got a 
book in my pocket worth a dozen of it.” 

He pulled out a small dime novel of the blood and 
thunder kind, with a sensational red and yellow wood-cut 
on the cover. 

“ This is the ^ Life of Billy Pate, the Terror of the 
West,’ ” he said. ‘‘ Killed no end of men, and broke jail 
ten times. He was shot at last, when they were trying to 
take him — five' to one — after he’d hurt three of ’em. 
There’s the picture where he was saved by his girl, Sally 
Quin. She dressed in boy’s clothes, and fooled the officers 
— put ’em on the wrong scent. Plucky girl, she was — 
handsome, too. She’s got an arni and an ankle for you! 
I know a girl that looks like her, and has got her spunk, 
every bit.” 

A shade of regret stole over his face. He brightened up 
again as his eyes fell upon two men, with common-looking 
faces, dressed in flashy plaid suits. They had just come 
up on deck, and they lounged against the railing near by 
and stared at Nan. 

‘‘Oh, I say, there’s Brun and Wilson — two fellows I 
know. Smartest hands at poker you- ever saw. They’re 
going down to Panama to rake in the money. They won’t 
believe I’m married. I’ll show ’em — now,” and with a 
wink at the men, he pulled Nan to him and kissed her. 
The men laughed coarsely. 

The girl’s cheeks flamed, and she said, half sobbing: 

“ Don’t do that again. Oh, I am ashamed — I am 
ashamed of you!” 

“ I am ashamed of you^' he returned. “ Don’t know 
your place as a wife — putting on skittish ways now, and 
Ave married. I’ll kiss you when and where I please. Don’t 
you belong to me? You’ve promised to honor and ob^y 


NAN HAGCtARD. 


109 


lYes, she had so promised, and she belonged to him — 
to \ Edmund Hoyt — who looked so, who talked with 
such utter want of refined feeling, who smelled so of 
whisky and tobacco. How had she been so blind, so de- 
ceived as to marry him? It was Selma’s art that had 
blinded her. She felt it now. She began to see the treach- 
ery that had made her its victim. 

She sat in piteous misery. Involuntarily her look went 
once across to where the tall stranger and his boyish charge 
were sitting. Her eyes met his, and her face changed, but 
not with embarrassment. The look-in those grave, gray 
eyes was one of sympathy and pitying interest. It had a 
quieting effect upon her. 

I don’t think you care for my company,” Edmund 
said, rising and throwing his half -smoked cigar over the 
railing; “ so I’ll go below. When dinner’s ready I’ll come 
for you.” 

But he did not come. The bell rang for the two-o’clock 
dinner, and the passengers who were on deck went down — 
all but Cyril and Hartley. They lingered to see if the man 
would come for the girl, who seemed to be under his pro- 
tection. 

Let’s ask her to go down with us,” Hartley said; but 
the elder man shook his head. 

It might mortify her. She is sensitive — you can see 
that in her face. It would be better to send the purser.” 

They went down, and Nan, though she had not tasted 
breakfast, and had eaten hardly anything the day before, 
was left sitting forlornly, miserable little bride that she 
was, gazing out over the heaving water. 

She had been sitting so only a few minutes when the 
purser of the boat — a quiet, nice-looking, middle-aged man 
— came to her and asked in a respectful, matter-of-fact way 
if she would not go down to dinner. 

She knew by lois cap and dress that he was an ofiicer of 


no 


NAN HAGGARD. 


the boat, so she only hesitated an instant; then, thanking 
him, she rose and went down with him to the cabin, where 
he seated her by his side and had her plate served, telling 
her pleasantly that she had better eat heartily and make 
the best of the smooth sea, as they might look for rougher 
water before long. Hitherto the sea had been like glass. 

‘‘ And you donH look like an old sailor,’^ he added. 

She told him it was the first time she had ever been on 
a ship. The dinner was so excellent and the officer so 
kindly attentive that Nan’s appetite came to her. It was 
some time before she noticed, sitting at a small side-table 
in a corner, Edmund and some others, among them the 
two men in plaid clothes. They were eating in a hoggish 
fashion, talking and drinking wine. Edmund’s face was 
very red, and his hair in bristly disorder. Nan once more 
contrasted that face with the one beside her, and with 
others she saw at the table — notably the high-bred feat- 
ures of Cyril and the handsome, brilliant face of his young 
comrade. Oh, how ignorant she had been to imagine that 
all men were like Edmund Hoyt! If she had only known 
— if she had not been deceived by Selma! But it was too 
late; she was his wife — he was her master. She must 
submit to be kissed by that mouth, whose sensual exj^res- 
sion made her turn sick as she watched him. 

She could eat no more. Her kindly attendant thought 
it was a sudden qualm of seasickness, and hastened to con- 
duct her. on deck again, and to give her a pleasant seat 
sheltered from the sun, where she could have plenty of 
breeze. 

She was not in the least seasick. There was scarcely 
any motion in the vessel; the sea was almost as calm as a 
lake on a still day. The sky was marbled with white 
clouds, and there was a soft, purplish haze hanging over 
the horizon. Nan could see the coast in the distance— an 
undulating, blue-green line. Some porpoises were tum- 
bling in the water not far from the ship, and a distant sail 


\ KAiq- HAGGARD. Ill 

am a flock of sea-gulls near at hand lieliDed to vary the 
mbnotony of blue sky and deej) blue sea. 

^an, with her child-like buoyancy of spirits, was look- 
ing| at the prospect with keen enjoyment, forgetting her 
troi\bles, when a hand fell heavily on her shoulder. She 
turped quickly, and saw her newly made lord and master. 

Edmund Hoyt was now fully under the influence of 
liquor. His eyes, blood-shot and glassy, protruded in his 
inflamed face; their idiotic, animal look made her gasp 
with terror as he thrust his face close to hers. The sicken- 
ing scent of whisky came strong upon his hot breath. 

“ Come,^’ he said^ in a thick voice, ‘‘ letch go do\vn to 
our state-room; I want to lie down, and I want you to rub 
my head. Come.^^ He took hold of her about the waist. 
“ Come, along, swheety; 3^ou bTongst to me now, you 
know.’’ 

She forgot her dread of drawing upon her the notice of 
the passengers. She could only feel an overpowering sense 
of terror and repugnance at the thought of being alone 
with this drunken, beast-like creature. The look in his 
eyes filled her with shuddering horror. She sprung back, 
jerking herself from his hold. 

“ I don’t want to go below — I will not go!” she said, 
in a low, determined voice. 

His face darkened; he uttered an oath. 

ITl show you!” he exclaimed, and clutched her again. 
She struggled for a second in his grasp. 

Hartley Lytton could stand it no longer. He had been 
sitting not far from Nan, pretending to read, but in reality 
stealing furtive glances at her unconscious face. He threw 
down the book and sprung to his feet when Edmund seized 
Nan the second time. 

“Loose her, -you drunken brute!” he said, and struck 
Hoyt’s arm with all the force of his slender muscles. 

The drunken brute turned upon him savagely. 

f 


11 ^ 


KAN HAGGAED. 


‘‘ It’s you, you meddlesome pup! I’ll pound you into a 
jelly!” he cried, and struck at Hartley with fury. 

The blow did not fall. His arm was caught and held as 
in a vise. He looked up into the stern, set face of Cyril, 
and his eyes fell. He cowered under the withering look 
of the man he felt was his master. He felt, too, the 
strength of the sinewy grasj) that now held both his arms. 
He swayed and staggered for an instant, his red face grow- 
ing purple and contorted, then he tumbled down in a heap, 
and lay there breathing stertorously. 

Nan forgot her personal terror and mortification in a 
new dread. 

What is the matter with him? Is he hurt, is he 
dying?” she asked, as she hung over him and saw his 
frightful, convulsed face. 

Cyril reassured her. 

He is not dying,” he said. He has a kind of fit. It 
will pass off. *1 will have him taken below. Don’t be 
troubled; it is not serious.” 

Hoyt was carried below. Cyril followed, giving his as- 
sistance to Nan, who was sobbing hysterically. He put 
her in chaise of the stewardess, again begging her to be 
composed. 

I assure you there is no need to be apprehensive,” he 
said. ‘‘ The attack is not dangerous. I imagine he has 
had such seizures before. I am a physician, and I will do 
all I can for him. Give her a glass of wine and get her to 
lie down,” he said to the motherly colored stewardess, 
slipping a dollar into her palm. 


CHAPTEE XIV. 

It was the second day out at sea. Nan lay on the nar- 
row berth of her state-room, weak from wretchedness and 
seasickness, for the vessel had encountered some rough 
water. 


NAK HAGGARt). 


iia 

dmmid was better. The paroxysm had passed off, 
leaving him stupid and half comatose. For awhile he had 
writhed in strong convulsions, throwing his attendants 
from him with violence. 

A fclow from his heavy fist had chanced to strike poor, 
little, frightened Nan, who had tried to come to his side, 
thinking it was her place as his wife. ' She staggered back, 
and Dr. Thorne caught her as she was falling. 

He led her out of the state-room. 

‘‘ This is no place for you,’^ he said. ‘‘ I assure you 
your — your — husband is in no danger. He shall be well 
attended to. Here, stewardess, take this lady to her room, 
and remain with her until she feels better.’^ 

He gave Nan into the hands of a fat, comfortable-look- 
ing old colored woman with a face full of kindness and 
dignified importance. 

“ I will bring or send you word presently how the yomig 
man is,’^ he said to Nan as he left her. 

An hour later a servant brought her a card on which was 
written: 

‘‘He is doing well. The violent stage is past. He is 
sleeping under the influence of an opiate. Go to bed and 
rest content that he will lack for nothing.” 

Nan lay down but did not go to sleep. She felt she had 
been deceived and betrayed. She could see no way to es- 
cape from the trap in which she had fallen. Her thoughts 
simply beat themselves against the bars of circumstance, 
like the wings of a caged bird. She was this man^s wife. 
She had sworn to love and cherish and cleave to him 
through good and ill. 

True, she had been decened into thinking he was far 
other than she had found him to be. It was because 
she knew nothing of the world, nothing of men or of wom- 
en either, she thought, with a bitter sense of Selma^s 
treachery. She must pay the penalty of her ignorance. 
There was no help for her now. She was Edmund’s wife 


114 


NAN HAGGARD. 

—the wife of the brutish creature whose look she shud- 
dered to remember. She could not break her vow, that 
would be a sin. She must do her duty as a wife. She 
must stay with him — live all the days of her life in his 
companionship. 

‘‘ Oh, God! I can not! Let me die! Death is better!’’ 
sobbed the wretched girl, rising from the bed, as soon as 
the state-room door had closed behind the kind but of- 
ficious old stewardess, and flinging herself on her knees 
beside her berth in an agony of despair. 

Sleeplessness and misery made her feel too sick to get 
up in the morning. They were in rough water, too, and 
seasickness was added to her other troubles. She could 
not taste the breakfast that the stewardess brought to her. 
She drank a little tea, and listened to the message the doc- 
tor had sent — that Edmund was doing well, was needing 
nothing. 

A little later he sent a gl^^ss of iced lemonade that Nan 
found refreshing. 

About noon she had fallen asleep for the first time, when 
one of the cabin boys knocked at her door and roused her 
with the message that her husband wanted her to come to 
him right away.” 

She rose at once; her head throbbed with pain and swam 
round giddily as she hurriedly arranged her dress and fol- 
lowedHhe boy to Edmund’s state-room. A sickening odor 
of whisky greeted her as she opened the door. Edmund 
was sitting up in bed, undressed, and with his hair in dis- 
order around his flushed and dissolute-looking face. He 
had been drinking, having, as Nan found afterward, bribed 
the boy to bring him a bottle of whisky, contrary to the 
doctor’s, orders. 

‘‘You’re a pretty wife to run off and leave your sick 
husband for strange people to nurse,” he began, as soon 
as Nan came into the room. 

“ The doctor said there was no need of my — ” 


KAK HAGGARD. 115 

^‘Damn the doctor!’' he interrupted. ‘/He’s a fool, 
anyhow. He am’t the ship’s surgeon. The cabin boy 
said BO. He’s some city swell acting as the ship’s doctor. 
He’d better quit meddling with my business. Sit down 
there and bathe my head. _Give me some water. I’m 
burnin’ up inside.” 

Nan did as she was told. She was glad to do any serv- 
ice for him. It relieved her conscience, that rebuked hef^ 
for the shuddering disgust she felt for him. But as she 
sat there and looked at him and listened to his coarse, 
boorish utterances, she grew sick in heart and body. She 
could barely keep from falling out of her seat. 

He continued to upbraid her for neglecting him. 

“ There’s plenty of girls would be glad to nurse me, and 
kiss me too. I know one that kisses sweet as pie,” ho 
said. “ Give me that plug of tobacco out of my pocket. 
Selma wouldn’t let me chew while I was courtin’ you, but 
now I’ve got you I’ll do what pleases me.” 

He twisted a piece of tobacco from the plug she gave 
him and began to chew it as he lay, the juice running out 
of the corner of his mouth, when at last, to Nan’s infinite 
relief, he fell asleep. 

She wiped his mouth with a damp’ cloth and then sat 
still, feeling too weak to rise, watching him and listening 
to his heavy breathing. 

The door opened and Dr. Thorne entered. He looked 
surprised and worried when he saw her. 

“You are not fit to play nurse here,” he said. “You 
are more in need of being nursed yourself. I supjiose he 
sent for you while I was off attending to a sick passenger 
— the surgeon had fever and was left behind at St. Luke’s 
Island last trip, and I am acting in his place until we reach 
the island. I left a man here with. Mr. Hoyt. He has 
bribed him to bring him whisky, I see. He must have 
liquor of his own on board. They would not send it from 
the bar after my order that he should not have it.” 



116 


NAK HAGGAKD. 


Edmund was muttering as he turned his head about. At 
first his mutterings were incoherent, but presently he said, 
aloud : 

Come here, Cora, come and kiss me. I don’t love her 
best. I love you. You’re my own girl. I married her 
because — because Selma made me. ” 

Nan rose to her feet. A sense of the wrong that had 
been done her, of the full wretchedness of her fate, came 
upon her like a blow. This man did not even love her. 
He cared for another woman — in the coarse way that alone 
he was capable of loving. Selma had made him marry 
her. Selma had deceived her and ruined her life — Selma, 
whom she had loved and trusted and believed to be her 
friend. 

She was white to the lips. She did not remember Cyr- 
il’s presence. She uttered a cry of pain — such a cry as a 
snared creature might utter when it feels the steel teeth of 
the trap close on its flesh. 

Cyril took her hand and drew it through his arm. 

Come out of this,” he said. “ Come up on deck and 
get some fresh air. We are in nearly smooth water 
again.” 

He half supported her up the stairs to the deck. It was 
late in the afternoon. The sun was veiled by light clouds. 
There was no wind, only a light breeze that just ruffled 
the water. It was balmy and refreshing. 

A number of the passengers were seated in chairs under 
the awning, enjoying its coolness while they read or talked, 
or silently looked out at the sea and sky, which was now 
all there was to be seen. 

Hartley was sitting off to himself with his violin, his leg 
thrown, boy-like, over the arm of the chair, his eyes gaz- 
ing dreamily out as he drew the bow of the violin listlessly 
across the instrument. 

He jumped up as he saw Dr. Thorne coming with Nan, 
and brought the arnt-chair forward for her seat. 


KAN HAGGARD. 


117 


Dr. Thorne settled her comfortably in it apart from the 
other passengers. Then he went below and brought up a 
glass of iced orangeade, which he got her to drink. 

Play something, Hartley,’’ he said, and the young 
man seated himself on a camp-stool and began to play. 
Sweeter music. Nan thought, she had never heard. The 
instrument seemed to speak to her in a voice of soothing. 
The delicate, quivering, long drawn-out notes had the 
cadence of human feeling, passion, tenderness, sympathy. 

As she listened and looked out over the wide, gently 
heaving sea she grew calmer, and when Hartley ceased 
playing she asked where they were now in their ocean jour- 
ney and how far the vessel had still to go. 

‘‘We will soon be under semi-tropic skies,” Dr. Thorne 
answered. “ The vessel will not reach Panama for several 
days yet, but we will get to St. Luke’s Island to-morrow, 
where some of the passengers and freight are to be put 
ashore. Is that your journey’s end?” 

“ I am going to Lost Island; I do not know where that 

is, ” answered Nan. 

“Lost Island!” he echoed. His look and tone ex- 
pressed strong surprise. 

“ Do you know anything about the island?” she asked. 

“It is ten miles from St. Luke’s. The ship does not 
touch there. You will have to get a boat to take you to 

it. It is a small island not easy of approach. There is 
no one living on it but negroes, who are as wild as sav- 
ages, and an overseer. You are not going to stay there 
any length of time, surely?” 

“ I shall stay there all my life, I tliink,” Nan said, her 
voice full of the despairing pain that rose in her heart, as 
she thought: “ Why should I want to go back? Let me 
bury myself there. ” 

He looked at her with troubled interest. He longed to 
know her story. What was the meaning of the strange 


118 


KAN HAGGARD. 


situation he found her in? — a girl, almost a child — young, 
lovely, refined, and married to such a man. 

think your parents or your friends would not let 
you stay long at such a place as Lost Island,’^ he said 
presently. 

Nan’s heart was full at these words,, and the recollection 
they brought of Selma’s treachery. It overfiowed. 

I have no parents, no friends, no one in the wide 
world,” she said, ending the miserable confession with a 
sob, and hiding her face in her hand. 

Dr. Thorne was silent. What could he say to comfort 
her? How could he help her? His heart, that men called 
cold and cynical, was moved to deepest pity for this girl, 
but he found no words to express it. Not so with his 
young comrade. Hartley threw down his violin and came 
to her side. 

“ Don’t say you have no friends,” he exclaimed. I 
am your friend. Doctor Thorne is your friend. We will 
■pi’otect you against that drunken boor.” 

She raised her head and looked at him, her eyes lighting 
•^^rough her tears, and her cheeks flushing as she said: 

He is my husband. You must not speak of him so to 
me.” 

“Oh, pardon me! I forgot. Who wouldn’t forget? 
You are so young and so — so different from him. You 
surely are not going to Lost Island to live there alone with 
him?” 

“ Yes^I am. I have told you he is my husband.” 

“ But — you have need to be afraid of him. You saw 
what he was like yesterday. ” 

“ It was the whisky. He will not drink it on the island. 
I will try to keep him from it,” she said, faintly. 

“It was the whisky and the native brute in him too,” 
muttered Hartley, half aloud. 

Nan had averted her face. The flush had gone out of 
her cheek. She was quite pale. She was thinking of Lost 


KAK HAGGARD. 


119 


Island and wondering what her life there would be like 
with Edmund Hoyt. Would he have more of those terri- 
ble seizures? A picture of his convulsed, purpled face 
came up before her. She turned suddenly to Thorne. 

‘‘Will you tell me what it was that he — my husband — 
had yesterday? I mean what kind of illness it was?’ ^ 

He hesitated. She was unhappy enough. His answer 
would only make her worse if he told the truth, and her 
earnest, child-like eyes compelled him to tell the truth. 
Besides, it was his duty to tell her, if indeed she did not 
know. 

“ The attack was of the nature of a fit,^^ he said, “ an 
— an epilectic fit. Do you not know what that is?’’ 

“ Is it not something that comes from drinking wliisky?” 
she asked. ‘ 

“No; drinking aggravates it, but it is in the blood — 
born in the blood. He has been subject to these seizures 
all his life. Did you not know this?” 

“ I did not know it. I never saw him like that before. 
I have known him such a little while.” 

“ And did no one tell you of this? Had you no friend 
— no guardian to prevent your marrying?” 

“ My guardian is his step-father. He and his wife wished 
me to marry their son. Friend ! I told you I had none. 
She I thought was my friend deceived, me, oh ! so cruelly. 
I did not believe one could be so cruel, and I loved her, I 
trusted her so!” 

Once more her voice broke and a sob struggled in her 
throat, but she forced it back. 

“ It is a shame,” said Thorne, forgetting his habitual 
self-repression in the glow of indignant pity * “ You have 
been deceived and wronged, that is plain. You ought to 
have been told of this young man’s malady and his failings. 
You are an inexperienced child. You could not be ex- 
pected to know why they wanted you to -marry him. I do 


1^0 NAN HAGGARD. 

not Bee. Pardon my asking one question. Did you have 
money?’’ 

‘‘ I had nothing-nothing but a little land. My guard- 
ian bought it from me. ” 

“ Then I can not understand their motive^ unless ” — he 
stopped and did not add what was in his mind — ‘‘ unless 
they wanted to rid themselves of the mortifying burden of 
a drunken, idiotic son.” 

Hartley had again drawn near to her. Her sad, lovely 
face, touched with the pale rosy light of the clouded sun- 
set, captured his ardent boyish fancy. 

‘‘ They made you marry him,” he said. You didn’t 
know what he was, but now you do know, and you will 
leave him. You ought to for your own safety’s sake. 
Come with us. We will take care of you, and carry you 
to your friends. If 3^011 have no friends of your own, Cyril 
will take you to his mother. You must not go to Lost 
Island with this man.” 

For an instant a light of hope suffused her face. It died 
out, and once more the sensitive flush stained her cheek. 

“ I must go with him, because I have married him. I 
promised to stay with him as long as I lived. I can not 
break my vow. ’ ’ 

She said it so earnestly, with so much simple sincerity, 
and yet so hopelessly. Hartley looked at her in mute sur- 
prise. 

‘‘ She has been brought up in some nunnery, Cyril,” he 
said, in an under-tone. 

Dr. Thorne was in doubt what to say. He too had 
primitive ideas as to the marriage vow, yet he felt he must 
make one suggestion. 

“ But his malady,” he said, ‘‘ that dreaful epilepsy, do 
you know it is a disease that is hereditary, and that it will 
descend to — ” 

‘‘ The promise was in sickness and in health, for better 
or for worse,” she answered. 


NAN HAGGARD. 


121 


Dr. Thorne bit his lip; but he felt more than ever drawn 
to this queer girl, who seemed to have dropped down from 
some other sphere, so unworldly and old-fashioned was she. 

Hartley uttered an impatient exclamation and began to 
draw the bow discordantly across his violin by way of ex- 
pressing his dissatisfaction. Presently he coughed, and. 
Thorne looked at him anxiously. 

‘‘ That coat is too light for you now that the sun has 
gone down,’^ he said. “You must put on your thicker 
coat. ITl bring it to you. 1 am going down to see if my 
patient is awake. Play while 1 am gone — play that sym- 
phony in E."” 

Nan’s eyes followed the tall figure as he went away. 

“ How good he is to you!” she said. “Is he your 
brother?” 

“No; he is no kith or kin of mine; but he has been 
brother, and father, too, to me all my life. Ever since I 
have had this cough he has been a mother to me, as fussy 
and watchful as any hen over her one chicken. He leaves 
his big practice in the city to come down South with me as 
soon as cold weather comes.” 

“ That shows he is good and unselfish. How much you 
must love him!” 

“ Love him? Oh, yes, I like him first-rate. It’s not 
altogether unselfish in him to come with me, though. He 
likes to hunt, and fish, and to sail. He has a little shooting- 
box at St. Luke’s Island, and he has his yacht there. We 
are going to take a sail — as far as Jamaica, I believe. How 
jolly if we could have you with us! Can’t you come, 
now? The skipper’s wife is going — a good sort of woman.” 

“ Oh, I would like it; but — I have told you — I do not 
belong to myself any more.” 

“ You belong to him — that is simply a shame. I will 
say it, if you get mad with me. You do not love him, do 
you?” 

“ I do not think it is right for you to ask me that.” 


NAK HAGGARD. 


m 

“ Yes, it is; I am older than you, and I like you. I. 
would like to sketch you just as you are sitting there in 
the after-glow.' 

“ Do you paint pictures?^’ 

“ Oh, 1 do a little of everything. I can’t tie myself 
down to one pursuit, like Cyril. He fairly burrows in sci- 
ence. I will sketch you in black and white, or paint your 
picture in water-colors, if you will go with us on the yacht 
trip to Cuba.” 

‘‘ I can not,” she said,' with decision, her cheeks flush- 
ing as she felt how tempting the offer of escape was to her. 

But,” she added presently, a great longing rising in 
her, I wish I could go to j^our friend’s mother; I am 
sure she is good. But it can’t be; do not talk to me about 
it any more, please. Won' t you play for me? I never 
heard the violin before, except at the theater, in the or- 
chestra.” 

He began to play a symphony in a minor key, very soft 
and subtle and tender. She stole a glance at his face, 
noting its clear-cut features, its vivid expression. No, the 
Romeo of the stage was not half as handsome and graceful 
as this young man. Then his companion, Cyril Thorne, 
with his noble, intellectual face, his eyes and mouth full of 
quiet power. There were such men as this in the world, 
and she had thought Edmund Hoyt was a type of his 
species. 

Dr. Thorne came up with Hartley’s coat on his arm. 
He went back after giving it to him, for he had not yet 
been in Edmund’s room. He went now and found him 
still asleep. He found, too, the bottle of whisky hidden 
among the bed-clothes. It had been drawn from the keg 
Edmund had contrived to get aboard the ship in spite of 
Selma’s watchfulness. He called up the cabin boy, who 
had been bribed to get it, and gave him a severe repri- 
mand, threatening to report him to the captain if it hap- 
pened again. 


KAK HAGGAED. 


123 


Edmund waked up and heard the threat. He looked 
sullen, but did not say anything. Dr. Thorne spoke to 
him kindly and sat down by him, hoping to lead him to 
talk about Ms marriage and his plans. But he could get 
nothing satisfaetory out of him. Edmund Hoyt had the 
cunning that often accompanies imbecility. He held his 
tongue, as Selma had warned him to do. He was so un- 
civil in his replies that Thorne gave up the hope of im- 
pressing on him the duty of treatmg his child-wife with 
more than usual kindness' since he was taking her away to 
a place so isolated as Lost Island, where she must depend 
solely on him for company. 


CHAPTER XV. 

The next morning Nan was out early. She was too 
restless to stay in the close state-room. She was on deck 
when the sun rose, and Cyril found her there when he 
came out of the surgeon^s private room, which had been 
assigned to him. 

She was watching the playful tumbling of the clumsy 
black porpoises in the smooth, sparkling water, and he was 
glad to see a smile come to her lips. 

Hartley joined them there after breakfast. He was 
reading a novel of adventure in Australia, out of which he 
read a page or two aloud. This drew Cyril out to speak 
of his travels in South America and Mexico, and Nan list- 
ened entranced to his description of an old mission house, 
and an aged priest and his wonderfully beautiful daughter 
whom he had found there, and the snakes and tarantulas 
they had for pets. He was telling of a visit to a ruined 
Aztec temple when Edmund came up. Nan had taken his 
breakfast to him in his room, and had seen that he eat 
heartily and seemed almost, if not quite, as well as before, 
except that he was nervous. His hand was unsteady and 
his eyes were bloodshot and heavy. 


m 


NAN HAGGARD. 


Nan saw him first as he came toward them, and the 
pretty look of charmed intelligence with which she was 
listening to CyriPs story disappeared suddenly. Her spirits 
went back into their old eclipse. He took no notice of her 
companions, except to scowl at them as he came \xp to her, 
and took her rudely by the arm. 

You’re a nice bride,” he said, “ off ffirting with other 
men, and your sick husband in his room!” 

He carried her off to another part of the deck and kept 
her by him the rest of the morning. When he went to 
sleep, which he soon did, he insisted on putting his head in 
her lap. He lay there sleeping and snoring loudly, his 
mouth half open, his face puffy and discolored. 

Titania and Bottom, for all the world!” said Hartley, 
callmg Cyril’s attention to the pair. 

“ Hush! and don’t let her see you looking at her. She 
is killed with mortification now, poor child. No, it is not 
Titania. The fairy had no soul, and this girl has — more’s 
the pity!” 

St. Luke’s Island came in sight in the afternoon. Soon 
they approached as near to it as possible, and the steamer 
cast anchor, while a lighter came alongside and conveyed 
such of the passengers as were bound for this stopping- 
place to the island, that looked green and picturesque, with 
its strip of white beach, its cottages, its palm-trees, and its 
broad-winged hotel, the piazzas brilliant with flowering 
pot-plants and blossoming vines. Further back were woods 
whose waving greenness were suggestive of singing birds, 
tropical fruits, and game. 

A number of people were at the landing, watching the 
arrival of the lighter — sunburned men in shirt-sleeves and 
broad palmetto hats; a few women ‘in light dresses, carry- 
ing white and light-colored sun-sha^les and palm-leaf fans. 
Negroes and swarthy mulattoes were in the majority, and 
there were some sailors m round hats and dingy flannel 
blouses — probably belonging to the trim little yacht, or 


NAK HAGGARD. 


125 


one of the two sail-boats or fishing-smacks that were 
anchored near the pier. 

Edmnnd had told Nan that the boat belonging to Lost 
Island would be here to meet them. Selma had written 
weeks ago that he would be here on this ship. How she 
knew it, he couldn’t tell. She had a way' of knowing 
things ahead. 

She had written to the overseer that they were coming 
here — he and Nan — before ever she had seen Nan, he be- 
lieved. Ah! Selma was long-headed. He’d bet on her 
against any woman alive. 

So Selma had arranged Nan’s destiny before she went 
down to Haggard Creek. It had all been planned. 

‘‘ She had planned in that cold-blooded way to entrap 
me,” thought Nan. ‘‘What was, what could be her 
motive?” 

Edmund left Nan sitting on her trunk on the landiug 
while he went to see if the boat was there from Lost Island. 

She saw Cyril standing at a distance talking to a sailor. 
He looked toward her, but did not approach her, and he 
evidently prevented Hartley from . doing so. He did not 
want to make her situation more unpleasant by exciting 
Edmund’s anger and jealousy any further. 

Cyril seemed to be known on the island. The negroes 
touched their hats and grinned with pleasure as he stepped 
on shore. 

A fine hound had broken away from the hands that re- 
strained him and swam to meet the lighter. He was now 
at his master’s side, and Thorne had Iiis hand on the dog’s 
wet head as he talked to the sailor. 

Edmund came back in a towering passion. 

, “ The boat is here,” he said, “but those rascally. nig- 
gers don’t want to take her out. They say there’s some- 
thing wrong with her rigging. She got a bad jar on a rock 
they run her upon, the fools! and they are afraid they 
couldn’t manage her because there’s- going to be a wind- 


126 


KAN HAGGARD. 


squall this afternoon. It’s all gammon. They just want 
to stay here to-night and get their spree out. I’ll show 
them. I’m going to Lost Island this night, or I’ll turn 
every rascal of them adrift. There’s not going to be any 
squall. It’s clear as a clock now.” 

Yes, it was clear overhead, but in the horizon a dim-col- 
ored vapor was slowly boiling up, and the air was close and 
hot. 

I’m afraid there will be a storm,” Nan said. 

Oh, I see through you. You want to stay here and 
talk to those fellows you’re so. struck on. You sha’n’t do 
it. I’ll get you to Lost Island this day. I’m sick of the 
sight of those meddling dudes!” 

‘‘Edmund! For pity’s sake! The man hears you,” 
whispered poor Nan, ready to die with shame, for she saw 
Thorne suddenly walk away. 

She knew that the loud tones of Edmund’s voice had 
reached his ears. 

“ I don’t care if he did hear. I’ll let liim know I ain’t 
going to be put upon. Come on; let’s get aboard. I’ll 
send two of the niggers for our trunks. I know what I’ll 
do. I’ll just show them the keg of whisky, and they’ll trot 
that boat out fast enough. It’ll be like shakin’ a bundle 
of fodder before a stubborn mule.” 

“ Isn’t there another boat you can get. There’s one — 
so new and light and stanch-looking. ” 

“ That’s a yacht. She belongs to some swell or other. 
You couldn’t get her for love or money. No, our own 
boat’s good enough. Ik’s just them good-for-nothing nig- 
gers that don’t want to go out till to-morrow. They’ll be 
willing enough when they smell whisky.” 

Nan’s heart misgave her. She had no confidence in 
Edmund’s judgment. She watched him anxiously. He 
was talking excitedly to a group of four negro men whose 
black bodies were bare to the waist. They seemed unable 
to agree among themselves. The tallest negro, to whom 


NAN HAGGARD. 127 

the others appeared to defer, shook his head doubtfully, 
while Edmund stamped with rage. 

Presently Nan saw another person approach the group. 
It was the sailor she had seen talking to Cyril. He ap- 
proached Edmund and respectfully touched his hat, and 
said something which seemed to surprise and delight the 
other. 

“ You’re a trump!” she heard him exclaim; and he 
came back to her with a smiling face. 

‘‘ Good luck!” he said. That’s the skipper of the 
little yacht. He says he’ll take us to Lost Island free of 
charge. Think of that! He saw I was a gentleman, and 
he wants to get in with me. He wanted me to wait until 
to-morrow — says there’s going to be a squall; but I said I 
couldn’t and wouldn’t wait. The niggers were just cornin’ 
round when he stepped up. I was glad to show ’em I 
can get along without "em. I’ll make that overseer punish 
every one of ’em — cut their rations short.” 

But the owner of the boat?” Nan said. 

‘‘ Oh, he’s not here. I told you he was some city swell. 
I’ll. get the trunks aboard right off.” 

He walked away. Nan got up and 'gathered her small 
belongings together. She looked around for Cyril and his 
young companion. She saw nothing of Hartley, but Cyril 
was standing at. the water’s edge, talking to a man and a 
woman who were seated in a small row-boat — a fishing 
craft it seemed from the man’s wet net and basket. The 
woman wore a long sun-bonnet pulled over her face, and 
her figure was curiously stooped. 

‘‘She must be old,” thought Nan. “Doctor Thorne 
is talking to her, and now he has got into the Loat, and 
they have pushed off. He has gone. I will never see him 
again — ” 

Edmund came up at this instant with the two negro 
men. He asked her some confusing question about the 


138 


HAGGARD. 


baggage, and got into a slight altercation with one of the 
negroes who broke the strap of a trunk. 

^dien Nan looked again she saw nothing of the fishing- 
boat with its three occupants. Where had it gone? Prob- 
ably the yacht hid it from sight. The yacht presently took 
in her anchor and moved up to the pier, it being high tide. 
Ten minutes later the strangely united pair, with their 
trunks and other luggage, were on board the pretty craft, 
her sails were set, and she moved lightly away from St. 
Luke’s Island. 


CHAPTEE XVI. 

Nah sat on the deck of the Curlew ” and enjoyed the 
swift skimming over the waters. It was more delightful 
than the passage on the steamship, only she had not the 
companionship of the two congenial strangers. She had 
left them behind, and she had not even said good-bye to 
Dr. Thorne, who had been so kind. She would never see 
them again she said to herself. She was almost sorry they 
had ever crossed her path. She must forever compare 
them with Edmund Hoyt. 

Her heart was heavj w^hen she thought of the life that 
was now before her, but she was too riiuch a child and a 
poet at heart not to find pleasure in the buoyant motion of 
the pretty yacht that made her feel as though she were 
riding over the waves on the back of some obliging dolphin, 
like the sea nymphs she had read of. 

She turned for sympathy to Edmund. He was listening 
to a yarn' told by one of the sailors whom he was plying 
with whisky from the flask he had in his pocket. She 
heard his coarse laugh, and saw the flask passed to the 
man at the helm, who emptied it with two vigorous pulls. 

He wdll make the men drunk, and they will neglect 
their duty,” she thought, uneasily, ‘‘ and they said there 
might be a storm; but there is no sign of any.” 


NAK HAGGARD. 


129 


To an uninitiated eye, there was no sign of an elemental 
disturbance. The sun shone, it is true, through a thin 
reddish vapor, and the air was close and hot; but this was 
all. 

It was all for one moment; but the next, as if by magic, 
the sky darkened, the lurid vapor condensed into a mass 
of cloud; there was a flash of lightning, a crashing peal of 
thunder, the wind sprung up in an instant, a gust struck 
the yacht with such violence that Nan was thrown against 
one of the beams that supported the rigging. She heard 
a familiar voice give a rapid command, and saw Cyril 
spring to execute his own order before it could be done by 
the sailor, whose wits were slightly befuddled by grog. 

Clinging to her support. Nan saw the sails rapidly reefed 
and the yacht righted and turned so as to meet the next 
gust. It came -with such force as to take away Nan^s 
breath and force her to drop on her knees, clinging for 
dear life to the beam. A shower of spray was dashed in 
her face. She heard Edmund’s sputtering cry for help as 
he rolled over on the deck until he clutched a portion of 
the rigging and clung to it. 

Come below before the next gust,” said Thorne at her 
side. He caught her up in his strong arms as though she 
had been a baby, and carried her down into the cozy little 
cabin. 

‘‘ Here, my good woman, is the lady you were to take 
care of. Attend to her. She had better lie down; she 
will not be so apt to be seasick. I must go on deck.” 

Nan looked to see whom he was talking to. It was the 
woman in the sun-bonnet — the woman she had seen in the 
fishmg-boat. I’hey had got on board the yacht then. This 
must be Dr. Thorne’s oto yacht. He had issued his 
orders with a voice of authority. 

Lie down on this lounge,” said the woman. The 
blow will be over presently.” 

Nan did as she was told. The yacht was tossed about at 

5 


130 


NAN HAGGAKD. 


such a rate that she could hardly keep her position. The 
thunder was incessant, and Edmund, who had stumbled 
down the cabin-steps and lay on the floor, groaned in ter- 
ror at each peal. 

The woman in the sun-bonnet laughed as she heard him. 
The laugh made Nan glance at her wonderingly, it was 
so fresh and youthful. 

Presently the peals of thunder grew less sharp, the mo- 
tion of the yacht was less violent. It was evident that the 
storm had spent its force. 

The worst is over,” the woman said. 

Her voice was full and mellow. Nan looked at her 
quickly. She had pushed her long sun-bonnet back a lit- 
tle, and Nan caught sight of a pair of brilliant black eyes 
and a jetty tress of hair, ill according with the stoop and 
the slow movements of age that had characterized her 
when she sat in the fishing-boat. Can it be that these and 
the sun-bonnet and cape are a disguise? thought Nan. 
But why should the woman disguise herself? and why did 
she watch her so mtently from the depths of the sun-bon- 
net as she sat by her, dipping a stick brush into a tin box 
full of snuff and rubbing her teeth, that Nan could see 
were white and sharp as an animal’s? 

Nan felt uneasy under that persistent gaze. There 
seemed something malignant in it. She had a creepy sen- 
sation, as though this woman had a spite or some sinister 
design against her. It was unreasonable, she knew; yet 
when Cyril came into the cabin a few minutes later to tell 
her that the storm was over, she begged him to let her go 
on deck. She would like it better than the close cabin. 

‘‘ The sea is still rough,” he said, “ but you are quite a 
little heroine; you will not mind it.” 

Edmund had got on his feet. He did not notice the 
woman in the sun-bonnet; he felt somewhat humiliated. 
The sailors had told him that the yacht belonged to Cyril, 


KAiq- HAGGARD. 131 

the saw-bones he had been boasting to them that he had 
taken down on the ship. 

The sea was still heaving nnquietly, and the wind was 
coming in little puffs, but the storm was over. The sky 
was still cloudy, and it might rain later, for there were 
frequent flashes of lightning, but there would be no blow. 
The air was much cooled, and the little yacht seemed in- 
vigorated by her late encounter, for she was making gal- 
lant headway. 

‘‘ We are near Lost Island,’’ said Cyril. You can 
see it yonder to the west.” 

He was at the helm. There were shoals and rocks 
hereabout, he told her. He had found them out when he 
was here last winter. 

The sun was down, and the quick dusk of the tropics 
was settling upon the sea when they reached Lost Island. 
It seemed a long, low island, thickly wooded in part, in 
others covered with fields of grain dimly seen in the twi- 
light. 


CHAPTEE XVII. 

The sun had set. The red after-glow tinged the island 
and the still restless sea with a weird, unearthly light. 

The little yacht had quite easily come up to the rough 
wooden pier that jutted out from the beach. 

‘‘We are at our journey’s end,” Dr. Thorne said to 
Xan. A few moments after they landed. “ Yonder, 
among the trees, you see your future home — a little brown 
cottage. I sat on its doorstep once and had a drink of 
water from the hands of a handsome girl dark as a gypsy. 
It is a lonely place. I hope,” he added, looking at Ed- 
mund, who had come- up and was looking at Nan with a 
scowl, “ that you will not stay here long. It is too isolated 
a place for a young person to live at.” 

“ She’ll say as long as I want her to,” Edmund said. 


132 


KAN HAGGARD. 


doggedly. She won’t be any lonesomer than I will, and 
she’ll have plenty to do about the house. It’s all the better 
to be off to yourself. You won’t have any meddlers pokin’ 
around then and givin’ advice they ain’t asked for.” 

Nan’s cheeks flushed with mortification. Cyril gave no 
notice to Edmund’s ungracious interruption. 

He went on speaking to Nan. 

‘‘You must not think because you are here in this out- 
of- the- world Lost Island, that you too are lost and out of 
reach of your friends. They will remember you and turn 
their thoughts and eyes to Lost Island oftener than some 
may imagine. You will be kept in mind. If any wrong 
befall you, your friends will find it out, and punish the 
offense.” 

He felt constrained to say these words — fixing his cool 
gray eyes upon Edmund with a meaning in them.that even 
his dull brain comprehended. He dropped his eyes and 
turned off muttering some words of abuse he dared not 
speak openly. 

Cyril’s finely cut mouth was touched with scorn as he 
looked after him. His expression changed when his glance 
met Nan’s. There was a look of proud, sad reproach in 
her eyes. He felt that she would resent any expression of 
contempt for the man she was trying to feel loyal to. She 
believed it her duty to honor him — but how could she? 

How he pitied her! In a few moment she would leave 
her alone on this loneliest of islands — alone with the man 
who must henceforth be her world ! And such a man ! 

What could he say to her? If she were less innocent 
and more worldly wise he might speak to her of the wrong 
she was doing herself in holding to this marriage into 
which she had been entrapped. He would have told her 
that the law would free her from such an unholy contract. 
But this girl knew only the law of the Bible — the law of 
honor that bound her to her wifely vow — and she was 
proud and sensitive. 


NAK HAGGARD. 


133 


But he must say something. Her slender, child-like 
figure, her pale, pathetic little face and hopeless eyes as she 
looked off to the island and to the house that was to be her 
home with Edmund Hoyt, went to his heart. He said, 
gently: 

You told me you had no friend. It seems strange, for 
the young and lovely are seldom unfriended. I want to 
make a request of you. I want you to believe that I am 
your friend, and I want you to promise if you are ever in 
need of a friend’s help that you will let me know, if you 
can. I will be at St. Luke’s Island for a month. Will 
you promise to let me know if you should happen to need 
a friend?” 

I will — if it is in my power,” she promised. You 
are most kind to be willing to trouble yourself for me, a 
stranger. You have shown me much kindness during all 
this journey. I thank you from my heart. I will never 
forget it.” 

‘‘ And I will never forget you while my heart beats,” he 
returned, yielding to an impulse rare to him. 

A chuckling laugh made them both turn around. The 
queer woman who had waited upon Han in the cabin was 
standing near. She had a rusty traveling-bag in her 
hand, the big dingy cape muffled her stoop-shouldered 
figure, . the sun-bonnet hid her face. What had moved 
her to laugh? She had her head turned from them to- 
ward the sea when they looked. 

Who is she?” Han asked. 

I don’t know her — never saw her, I think, until a few 
hours ago. She spoke to me, and asked permission to 
come over to Lost Island in the yacht. She had heard my 
skipper offer to take a gentleman and his wife. She had 
been engaged as a cook by the ovjerseer at the island a 
week ago. She is—” 

‘‘Han, come and get your things together,^ and be 
ready to get off/’ Edmund called out in his rough voice, 

r— ■ 


134 


NAN HAGGARD. 


“ What are you talking to that confounded saw-bones 
for?’^ he continued, when she was close to him. ‘‘You 
seem all-fired taken with that stuck-up swell 

“ You owe it to him that you are here. The yacht is 
his/’ she answered, trying to repress her disgust. “You 
ought to thank him in common politeness.” 

“ It was the skipper that offered the boat to me. I’ll 
thank him. See here,” he went on, turning to the sailor, 
“ Pm much obliged to you, I’m sure, for bringing us across 
to-night.” 

“ Say that to the boss yonder,” responded the man, 
gruffly. “It was him as sent me to you. Belay me if I’d 
left St. Luke’s this day if it hadn’t been his orders. Thank 
him. ’ ’ 

“ ITl be hanged if I do!” muttered Edmund. 

" He was in a hurry to get off the yacht and out of the 
presence of the man he felt was so far his superior. 

As soon as the plank was thrown out he stepped upon 
it, pulling Nan with him. 

The fumes of liquor in his head and his natural clumsi- 
ness made his step unsteady. His foot slipped, and over he 
would have gone into the water, dragging Nan with him, 
had not Cyril clutched him ^vith one hand as he was fall- 
ing, while he threw the other arm around Nan. 

He took her in his arms and set her on the pier. She 
was frightened, and clung to him, trembling. 

“Don’t leave me here! Take me away! Take me 
back!” she half sobbed. 

He bent over her. 

“ Will you come?” he asked, eagerly. “ I will take 
you back gladly.” 

Her bosom heaved. She turned her eyes upon him with 
a wistful, irresolute look. Then her face changed. She 
drew her hand away. 

“No, no; I must stay. This is my place,” she said, 
with sad firmness. 


NAN HAGGARD. 


135 


Cyril stood looking at her awhile, then he said, solemnly: 

“ Good-bye. God watch over you and comfort you, my 
child 

She did not speak. She could only look after him 
through her tears as he stepped back upon the deck of the 
“ Curlew.’^ 

Edmund had picked himself up and was looking after 
the landing of his effects, particularly the keg of whisky, 
which was now half empty. 

Everything was put off. The sailors got back upon the 
yacht, the plank was drawn in, and the Curlew ’’ turned 
her head from Lost Island. 

Nan dared not look after her. She felt she must give way 
to the despair that swelled her heart almost to bursting. 
The departure of the yacht, with the man on board who 
had befriended and protected her, seemed to her like the 
breaking of the last thread of hope. There was nothing 
now for her. She was left here alone, helpless, in the 
power of the coarse and senseless being to 'whom she was 
bound by a tie she did not think it possible to break. 

The strangely mated pair were left standing on the beach 
where the sailors had carried their trunks. Neither no- 
ticed the woman in the sun-bonnet. She had seated her- 
self on the sand behind a pile of drift at a little distance. 
Her dingy brown cape and bonnet seemed a part of the 
sea- weed and rotten staves and fish-baskets of the drift 
pile. 

Edmund was abusing the overseer. 

“ The lazy beggar! He ought to have been down here to 
meet us with some of the niggers to take our things,"" he 
said. “He saw us land, unless he is asleep. I" 11 holler 
him up."’ 

He forthwith gave a shout that startled the echoes and 
caused a crane in the marsh grass to rise with a melancholy 
cry and a slow, heavy flapping of its gray wings. 


136 


InTAN haggard. 


Three men were soon seen coming from the little cluster 
of houses among the trees. 

When they came nearer, Nan saw that they were not all 
negroes, as they had looked to be at a distance. One of 
them was the overseer — Gasker— a Mexican, tall, wiry, 
swarthy, with coal-black hair and a thick black mustache 
curling like a snake around liis mouth. 

“ You’re a devil of a time cornin’. Didn’t you see us 
landing?” was Edmund's greeting. ‘‘ Eatin' your supper? 
AYell, I hope you didn’t eat it all up. I’m hungry as a 
hog. Them chumps you sent with the boat got her out of 
fix, they said; anyhow, they wouldn’t budge from St. 
Luke’s until to-morrow. I’ll cut their rations short when 
they get here. What’ve you got for supper?” 

“ Fry fish and fish raw, hoe cake hot, and coffee, tarn 
strong,” said the overseer. 

‘‘Good! It makes me smack my mouth!” exclaimed 
Edmund, his good humor quick to return like a child’s. 
“ And I’ve got some of the best whisky here to wash it 
down with you ever tasted. Shoulder the keg and the 
trunk, boys, and let’s get up to the house. Ain’t you 
hungry. Nan? This is my wife, Gasker. Pretty as new 
shoes, ain’t she? Looks as tender as a baby.” 

He put his arm around Nan and turned her so that she 
could be well seen. The two negroes and the dark-visaged 
Mexican stared at her until her cheeks were aflame. 

“ She’s a little one,” said Gasker, after he had looked 
his full, 

“ She ain’t much fat, that’s so,” Edmund said, apolo- 
getically. “ She ain’t a big armful like — like my other 
gal, you know. But we’ll feed her up and get her as fat 
as butter. What there is of her is mighty sweet,” he 
added, hugging Nan in his half -drunken good humor and 
aroused amorousness. “ Come on, sweety, let’s get home. 
I fell like eatin’ a good supper and tumblin’ into bed — 
don’t you?” 


HAGGARD. 


137 


He pulled the hand of the shrinking girl through his 
arm, and started forward. He stopped suddenly. The 
woman in the sun-bonnet had risen up from her seat on 
the sand unobserved. She came quickly up and stepped 
in front of Hoyt. 

“ Who are you? — what do you want?’^ he demanded. 

She straightened her stooped figure and stood erect. At 
the same time, she snatched off the big muffling cape and 
the sun-bonnet, and stood revealed in the pale sunset radi- 
ance — a young woman of fine, full shape and coarse but 
darkly handsome face. Her bold, black eyes shot angry 
lightnings at Edmund. 

‘‘ Cora!’’ he uttered, dropping back — ‘‘ Cora — you 
here?” 

‘‘ Yes, I’m here!” she replied, with a short laugh and a 
dangerous shake of her black head. ‘‘ And I’m here to 
stay. Your mother thought she was mighty sharp, but 
I’ve got ahead of her. I was willin’ to stay off and hold 
my peace till they done somethin’ for you; but this is goin’ 
too far — this marryin’ business. How dare you marry an- 
other woman?— how dare you, Ned Hoyt, when you 
know — 

It was Selma’s doings — she — ” 

“ You poor, weak coward! I knowed you’d been led by 
the nose. Well, I’ll show Selma, and I’ll show you, and 
ril show that baby-faced thing you’ve brought here — I’ll 
show all of them that you belong to me!” 

Does he truly belong to you?” asked Nan, eagerl3\ 

He does. Miss Baby-face, and if you dispute it, just 
come on, and we’ll see which is the best grit!” cried Cora, 
pushing up her sleeves as she spoke, and looking a chal- 
lenge at Nan. 

“ Oh, if he belongs to you — I am so happy — take him. 
Let me go away. I do not want him. Indeed, I do not!” 

You don’t?” Cora threw back her handsome head 
and laughed a loud, merry, mocking peal. She don’t 

f ' 


138 


KAN HAGGARD. 


want you!^^ she said to Edmund. The girl don’t want 
you. I thought so on the yacht. She likes the other fel- 
low — the tall captain-doctor — and he likes her.” 

“ No, she don’t. She’d better not!” Edmund burst 
out, his face crimsoning with anger. She’s scared of 
you — that’s why she talks so. And she not goin’ away 
from here. If she does, I’ll be ruined; Selma’ll throw me 
off. She’s signed a paper to give me a lot of money — 
thousands — if I keep Nan here. If she gets away I won’t 
get a blamed cent. And Gasker there’ll be turned off — 
your own pappy — along of you.” 

“ Dat is so,” interposed Gasker, ‘‘ I shall be turned off; 
I shall have no pay. Madame Selma — she will be so 
mad ! What for you come back here, you wildcat? You 
no business here. Let de man be; plenty mans in de 
world.” 

‘‘ Shut up, pappy; I know what I am doing. You are 
both of you cowards — afraid of a woman! Selma slia’n’t 
rule me. I’ve got a claim on this sneak, and he knows it. 
Marryin’ another woman! He ought to be strung up for 
it. Let him dare to look at her another time! Keep her 
here on the island, if that’s Selma’s game; but she sha’n’t 
stay in that house; she sha’n’t put her foot in it! Carry 
her somewhere else. There’s the nigger houses; one of 
’em’s empty since old Caleb and his wife died of the fever* 
And there’s the old fort and the gin-house— take her to 
one of them. You can fix it up for her to-morrow. I 
don’t care what she does, so she doesn’t come between me 
an’ my man. Go ahead with that trunk, Jakey; t’other 
one will stay where it is until pap tells you where to take 
it. Come along, Edmund; what’re you hanging back for? 
Don’t fool with me!” she cried, turning upon him fiercel)^ 
Gripping his arm with one hand, she put the other signifi- 
cantly upon a revolver that was stuck in her belt. 

The big, weak-minded youth changed color and fell to 
shaking, and submitted without a word to be led away by 


KAK irAGGARI). 


139 


the masterful Cora. She marched off with her prize, the 
negro following behind with the trunk. Edmund was 
sullen and listened to her abuse and ridicule in dogged 
silence. 

Presently she changed her programme and began to talk 
to him in a kind of roughly caressing way that put him into 
a better humor. The sight and smell of the hot supper 
restored his spirits, and* he was soon doing justice to the 
fried fish. 


CHAPTEK XVIII. 

Naist was left standing on the beach with the overseer 
and the negro, who had set down her trunk at Cora’s com- 
mand. 

Cora seemed to have the mastery on the island, by rea- 
son, no doubt, of her strong will and her fierce temper. 
Gasker, her father, though a six-foot giant, was afraid to 
thwart her. He was not in her confidence. Her sudden 
appearance had amazed and angered him. He had been 
paid to keep her away, and money was more to him than 
the scant affection he had for his wildcat daughter. 

His dark face wore an ugly scowl as he stared after her 
retreating figure. She had turned and made a mocking 
obeisance to the group on the beach. 

‘‘ She is ter tevil — tarn her!” he ejaculated. 

‘‘No, no; she is an angel,” cried Nan, laughing hyster- 
ically. 

She felt like a bird who has just slipped from the clutch 
of its captor. She gave as little thought to what manner 
of world she had escaped unto and what would befall her 
now, whether snare or starvation, as would the bird itself. 
She only felt she was free of Edmund Hoyt. Another 
woman had taken possession of him. She must be his 
wife, of course. She said she had a claim on him, and he 
had not denied it. She— Nan— did not belong to him. 


140 KAK HAGGARD. ■ 

Oh^ what joy not to belong to Edmund Hoyt! She felt 
like skipping over the sands with a bird’s light-hearted- 
ness. 

Cora had a right to him/’ she went on, and she has 
taken him. That is only what she ought to do. I am 
glad — so glad! And I hope they will be happy, and that 
he will mind her and not drink any more whisky. And I 
will go back the way I came. You will take me to St. 
Luke’s in your boat?” 

“ I hafs no boat — de boat is no good.” 

But it will be fixed, and will come to-morrow. I can 
stay here to-night somewhere, and you can take me when 
the boat comes. I will pay you. I have some money.” 

“ You not hafs money to pay me for lose my place,” he 
said, sullenly. “ De orders was to keep you here.” 

‘‘ Whose orders? Mrs. Brent’s? She has nothing to do 
with me. I will leave here if I have to take a skiff and go 
by myself.” 

“You will, will you?” Gasker said, with a cunning 
grin. “ We’ll see about tat. No boat leafs te island tat 
we don’t want her to go. You better be good to me, else 
maybe you never gits ’way s’long as you lifs.” 

He moved closer to Nan and grinned down in her face. 
His dark visage, with that evil leer upon it, was so hideous 
that she felt like screaming. 

“ Does nobody else live on the island?” she asked, trem- 
ulously. “ Is there no house ’vvith a woman in it where 
I could stay to-night?” 

“ Te white folks house up tere, and de nigger cab ’ns 
yonder — tat is all,” he answered, pointing to the roofs of 
some huts scattered among the trees in the twilight dis- 
tance. “ Tat tevil, Cora, scratch out your eyes ef you go 
to te house. Where ten she specs you to stay? Tere’s de 
nigger cab’n.” 

“ I would rather sit here all night on the sand than to 


KAK HAGGARD. 141 

stay in that hut where the negroes died of fever. Your 
daughter said something about an old fort.^’ 

‘‘ Te old fort is a skeersome place. Tere’s owls and bats 
an' — 

‘‘ An’ dere’s hants dere/’ spoke up the negro who had 
been a listener to the colloquy. “ Dere’s sperits dat 
walks froo dat ole fort ev’y night.” 

There ain’t no sperit . there that’ll harm folks as has 
got sense and ’ligion to cross theirselves and say a Hail 
Mary,” piped up a shrill, strange voice. 

Nan looked and saw that an odd-looking being had risen 
up from behind the drift pile like one of Macbeth’s witches. 

It was a girl — a child, to judge from her small form and 
short dingy-white cotton frock^ but her little peaked dark 
face had a suggestion of age and shrewdness in its twink- 
ling eyes. Her skin was brown, but her features were 
small, and her hair straight, hanging in neglected wisps. 
She had a battered palmetto hat on her head and shoes of 
hairy skin on her feet. Her legs, under the short frock, 
were bare and brown as her face. 

It was a queer apparition, but the appearance of one of 
her own sex — with a look and a voice she liked instinctively 
— was a welcome relief to Nan. After her first start of 
surprise she smiled at the little figure. 

‘‘ Who lives at the old fort?” she asked. 

‘‘ Me and Banjer and Billy — Billy’s a goat. And that’s 
all,” she said. ‘‘We ain’t afraid of the sperits. We’s 
got sense and ’ligion.” 

Nan laughed. 

“ I’m not afraid of the ghosts, either. And I’ll go to 
the fort with you to-night,” she said. “ Take my trunk 
there, please to the negro, who picked up one end of 
the little trunk, giving vent to a short whistle tliat signified 
it wouldn’t be he who would choose to stay at the old fort 
with the ghosts. 

.Nan turned to the overseer. 


142 KAN HAGGAED. 

‘‘ I will see you to-morrow, sir/’ she said, with a digni- 
fied bend of her little head. I will then make arrange-, 
ments with you for leaving the island.” 

Gasker stared at her without speaking. She went up 
to the girl and said, almost gayly: 

Lead the way to your castle.” 

She felt unspeakably relieved at her deliverance from 
the man she no longer believed to'^be her husband. She 
took some silver from her pocket and gave it to the hesi- 
tating darky, who still held one end of her trunk. It 
acted like magic upon him. He picked up the trunk, 
tossed it on his broad shoulder, and trotted on ahead, fol- 
lowed by Nan and her queer companion. 

Gasker, left alone on the beach, relieved his feelings by 
pulling savagely at his snaky mustache. 

‘‘Leave the island!” he repeated. “Tam! she won’t 
git away soon as she tinks. I’ll see tat much of orders is 
kep’!” 

He stood looking after the girl and her funny escort un- 
til they had entered the woods on the right, through which 
. the path to the fort led them. Then he remembered his 
appetite and the waiting supper. Pulling himself together 
with a shake of his long, slightly stooped shoulders, he 
proceeded with long strides to the house, where Cora and 
Edmund were already comfortably seated at the pine din- 
ing-table in the little three-roomed cottage. 


When Nan and her companion came to the point at 
which the path turned into the woods, they found that the 
darky with the trunk had halted and stood leaning against 
a tree. 

“ I’se afeard uv snakes in dis woods,’’ he said. “ I’se 
afeard dey comes out in de ebenin’ to cool; an’ it’s so 
dimmesome in here you can’t see ’em.” 

“You’re afeard of your shadow,” retorted the girl. 
“ You wait, I’ll strike a light and go on ahead.” 


NAN' HAGGAKD. 


143 


She reached down into the hollow of the big tree he was 
leaning against, and drew out a handful of pitch-pine 
splinters. 

I allers keep them here handy/ ^ she exclaimed, as she 
struck a match and touched it to the splinters, that blazed 
up at once. ‘‘Now follow me,^’ she said, picking up a 
stout stick. “ If there^s a snake in the path, the light’ll 
shine in his eyes and I’ll be ready for him.” 

On they went. Nan in the wake of her queer guide, and 
the darky following with the trunk. It was quite dusk in 
the woods, and the light of the pine torch had a weird 
effect as its rays streamed out through the thick, wet foliage 
upon the big gnarled trunks of the trees, and the twisted, 
snake-like vines. It gave the little torch-bearer the gro- 
tesque appearance of a legless ghost, for the rays fell part- 
ly on her short, white cotton frock, while her legs were 
lost in the dusk, which was brown like them. 

The narrow path twisted among the trees for a short 
distance, then there came a space clear of large trees, and 
showing signs that it had once been a clearing. Little 
tumuli, that were seen to be masses of rocks or of decayed 
logs overgrown with vines, were scattered here and there. 
Almost in the center of the space rose what seemed a great 
mass of vegetation. 

“Here we are,” said the guide, stopping before it. 
“Here’s the fort.” 

Then Nan saw that the nucleus of this strange-looking 
mass was a structure made with hands — probably of rocks, 
or sea shells and cement — in days long past, when it was 
used as a stronghold perhaps by the pirate hordes that in- 
fested these islands of the summer sea. 

The upper body of the fort rested upon arches of the 
cemented shells or stones. But the original structure had 
long been hidden by vines and moss. Vines had overgrown 
the upper part. The roof had partly fallen in, and had 
been supplemented by a thatch of palmetto leaves and 


144 


KAN HAGGAKD. 


bark^ making it rain-proof. Trees had sprung up inside ) 
the arched ground-floor, that had been paved with shells, ' 
but was broken up in many places. Cedar, and sea-myrtle, 
and young pecan-trees had grown close to the arches and 
twisted their boughs fantastically with the muffling vines. 
The one large tree that grew inside the partial clearing 
showed its enormous trunk close to the fort. It was a 
live-oak of noble girth, with branches that had grown 
about the walls, and through the arches, and over the roof, 
embracing the entire structure in its great ever-leafy arms. 
Nan stood looking at the strange-mass in amazement. 
Her guide, holding the torch aloft, turned and looked at 
her, and said with pride: 

“ AinT it a scary-lookin’ place? They say forty men 
was killed her onct, long ago. There’s, blood on the floor 
upstairs. Ain’t you scared to stay here all in the woods? 
Hadn’t you rather go to the nigger cabin? or I’d go to the 
white folks’ house whether or no, and fight that Cora out. 
I’ll help you to fight her. I’m good at scratchin’ and 
kickin’, and I’ve got a mighty sharp knife in my belt. If 
you’ll pitch in for your rights. I’ll help you, sure.” 

“ I don’t want my rights, as you call it, in that line. I ’ 
don’t want Edmund Hoyt. I’d rather sleep on the ground, 
or under the sea, than in a house where he was. ’ ’ 

“ You’ve got pluck. You won’t be scared of ghosses. 
Let’s go in. See that owl. The light blinds him. Lots 
of bats and screech-owls sleep under here, but no snakes^ 
only black racers. They won’t hurt you.” 

She lifted a curtain of moss that hung over one of the 
arches and entered, followed by Nan and the negro. 

Her torch threw its red illumination around the walls of 
verdure, and Nan could see the glint of eyes here and 
there — the eyes of the bats and owls. Some of these, dis- 
turbed by the light and voices, began to fly about, fanning 
the flame with their dusky wings, and brushing against 
Nan’s face. ' 


NAN HAGGARD. 


145 


They wonT hurt/’ said the guide, dodging a big bat 
as she spoke. “Now we’ll go upstairs. Here they are; 
do you think you can mount ’em? The rungs is big and 
strong.” 

It was merely a stout ladder leading up to a hole or door 
in the floor overhead. 

“ Of course I can mount it,” said Nan. “ I’ve climbed 
many a ladder — and tree, too.” 

“ Good for you; you won’t want any help, then. 
Come on.” 

She scampered up the ladder like a squirrel, holding 
her torch. As she reached the entrance, with Nan close 
behind her, the 'girl heard a loud bleat that so startled her 
she was near losing her footing. At the same instant the 
torch-light shone on a pair of flery eyes and a long, rugged 
visage decorated with horns and a flowing beard. 

“ Vamoose!” cried the guide. 

The goat nodded his head, and moved from the en- 
trance. 

“ That’s Billy; he sleeps up here,” said the girl. “ He’s 
better’n any watch-dog. Jes’ let any strange somebody 
come up this ladder, and Billy will have ’em going down 
head foremost afore you can say Jack Robinson! But soon 
as he sees it’s me or Banjer, and hears me say ‘ Vamoose!’ 
he’s quiet as a lamb. Bring the trunk up here, Jake. 
What’s the matter with you? That nigger’s scared outer 
his wits! Look at him, will you!” she said, turning round 
and throwing the glare of the torch upon the darky, who 
was about to dump the trunk down unceremoniously and 
bolt from the place. “ Be ashamed of yourself! Pick the 
trunk up and bring it on up here!” 

The negro obeyed. He mounted the ladder, and, stand- 
ing at the entrance, pushed the trunk into the room. 

“I seed sumpin’ withouten no head down dere!” he 
said, in a husky whisper. “ I)is ole place is enuff to skeer 


14a 


NAN HAGGARD. 


Gineral Washington!” and he sprung down the ladder and 
ran off as though the headless ghosts were after him. 

The queer girl laughed her little, noiseless chuckle. 
Then she went to a shelf, mid took a candle out of a box 
and lighted it by her torch, laying the torch on the hearth. 

Them’s my company-candles,” she said. ‘‘ I made 
’em myself out of wild bees’-wax. Fat lightwood knots 
are good enough for me and Banjer. Now, look around 
and see how you like this here for a sleepin’ -place.” 


CHAPTER XIX. 

INSIDE THE OLD FORT. — RENA’S STORY. 

Nan looked aroimd upon the strange interior. It was 
circular in shape, and thatched overhead with palm- 
leaves. She felt as though she were in some bower, or 
some bird’s nest, for there was a carpet of jiine-shatters 
under her feet, and the low walls of the structure were so 
covered with the foliage of vines and tree branches that one 
could hardly see any of the material — cement and shells — 
it had been built of more than a hundred years before. 

The rank vegetation outside had made its way through 
the port-holes and the cracks and fissures in the walls — 
here a limb of a tree, fantastically crooked, had thrust it- 
self through a port-hole; there a great brown vine had 
grown through a crevice which it helped to widen, and, 
curving up like a snake, had garlanded the walls with its 
leaves and branches. Overhead a thick thatch of palmetto 
leaves and bark supplied the place of the roof long since 
decayed or carried away by storms. 

The circular interior of the fort was divided into three 
apartments by a screen-like partition made of tall canes, 
cut from the cane brake, set in upright rows, each lower 
end stuck into holes or cracks in the puncheon floor. Pal- 
metto leaves and long moss matted and interwoven with 
the canes made them into a light but impervious screen. 


HAGGARD. 


147 


And thus three little rooms had been made in the inside 
of the old fort. Each had a door with a curtain of plaited 
moss hanging before it. ' This added to the bower-like ap- 
pearance of the room, as did the thick carpet of pine- 
shatters that covered the puncheon floor, emitting a resin- 
ous fragrance. 

The furniture was peculiar. Several cypress stumps, cut 
into shape and covered with coarse sacking, did duty as 
seats; but there was one stout and well-made easy-chair 
cushioned in faded damask. And there was a small, old- 
fashioned book-case with a green baize door. A no less 
old-looking clock ticked loudly on a shelf over the fire- 
place. On another shelf were arranged a few pieces of 
gaudily flowered crockery, a brown, dragon-shaped pitcher 
and several flat gourds. 

Gourds of larger size — one particularly enormous — sat 
on the floor against the wall, evidently used to hold provis- 
ions, soap, or household condiments of some sort. Pendent 
from the wall hung a water-bucket, a frying-pan, and 
some other cooking utensils. There was a small oven in 
the fire in the patched-looking fire-place where the chim- 
ney, also of cement, seemed to have been nearly demol- 
ished and supplemented by a section of the rusty smoke- 
stack of a steamboat. An aged-blackened sailor’s chest 
and an old hair-covered trunk completed the furniture of 
the place — or, at least, all that Nan could see^ her first 
survey. 

The occupant of this queer lodge in the wilderness stood 
watching her with bright, beady black eyes, holding her 
candle, the big goat, who was hungry, twitching her cot- 
ton frock between his teeth. 

‘‘ Well,” she said, what do you think of it? It’s a 
mighty poor-lookin’ house, ain’t it? Don’t you wish you 
-had gone to the nigger cabin?” 

No, indeed,” Nan answered, ipi’omptly. ‘‘ I like this. 


148 


NAN HAGGAKD. 


It is lovely. It’s like the woods. Do you stay here by 
yourself?” 

‘‘ Me and Banjer and Billy — and the ghosses.” 

Are there ghosts sure enough?” 

She nodded her little head — a quick, bird-like move- 
ment. 

Yes, there’s ghosses — the sperits of the men that was 
killed in here thousands of years ago. They ain’t a-goin’ 
to hurt you, though. 1 see ’em and I hear ’em sometimes, 
’cause I was bom with a caul over my head.” 

“ Is that a ghost I hear now?” asked Nan. 

While she stood there she had been hearing at intervals 
a low monotonous thrum-thrum that seemed to come from 
one of the queerly partitioned rooms. 

“No; that’s Banjer. He’s playin’ to let me know he’s 
done his work and wants his supper. That’s liis room, 
there; and here’s yours.” 

She lifted the moss curtain that hung before the door of 
one of the little rooms, and Nan saw a neat cot-bed inside. 

“ There’s where you are to sleep,” she said. “ ITl curl 
up out here on the pine straw and keep watch, me and 
Billy. Banjer sleeps on a pallet in t’other room.” 

“ Is Banjer black?” asked Nan, timorously. 

She was not accustomed to negroes, and she had a little 
cowardly fear of them. 

“ No, he ain’t; he’s whiter than me, and he’s mighty 
handy when he takes a likin’. He helps me, and I take 
care of him.” 

“ He is a child, then?” 

“ A child! Bless your heart, he’s tall as this ceilin’. 
He’s mighty well-growed, Banjer is. And he’s been in 
the world some time, I reckon. His hair and beard’s got 
a heap of gray in it. But then he is jes’ like a child about 
most things. He’s wrong in here ” — tapping her head — 
“ so folks say; but Banjer’s got a heap of Sense, and he 
knows good folks from bad. He jes’ d’spises old Gasker. 


KAN HAGGARD. 


140 


He canH git him to do a thing; but he^d do anything my 
pappy told him. He lived with us in the white folks^ house 
when pappy was overseer. Fve known Banjer all my 
days. He ain’t no kin to me, but he seems kinder like he 
is, and he is all I’ve got now.” 

‘‘ Are your father and mother dead?” 

“Yes, both of ’em. Mother died long time ago. Pappy 
died of the yaller fever- three years ago. He caught it 
from a Havana vessel at St. Luke’s. They’re both buried 
outside the fort under the big live-oak-tree; that was the 
old Spanish bury in’ -ground, they say. Mother was a fine 
scholar. She learned pappy to read, and he learned me 
all I know — that ain’t much. That book-case was hers, 
and the books in it. They’re mighty old, and their leather 
kivers is black and musty-smellin’. They belonged to her 
grandfather. He was a big judge or somethin’. Mother 
run away with pappy, and her kin never forgive her.” 

“ Tell me more about yourself,” said Nan, deeply inter- 
ested in her queer hostess. “ I am an orphan too.” 

“ Yes, I know it ” — with another quick nod of her bird- 
like head. “ 1 know more about you than you think. 
Yes; I’ll tell all I know of myself — if you want to hear it. 
But I mustn’t stand here idle. I’ll be gittin’ supper while 
I talk. I’ve got a tender young squirrel a-bakin’ in the 
oven there, and some hominy cookin’ in the stew-pan on 
the coals. I was gittin’ supper when I heard Edmund’s 
yell, and I run to the landin’. I knowed in my mind ’twas 
you had come. First, I’ll give Billy his corn or he’ll jerk 
my ap’ on off.” 

She took from the shelf a large, round, broad-mouthed 
gourd, half full of shelled corn, and sot it before the goat, 
who fell to work at once disposing of the kernels that rat- 
tled as he delicately nibbled them up and swallowed them 
without chewing, to be masticated presently as he lay on 
the straw near the door “ chewing his cud,” with sleepy, 
half -shut eyes. 


150 


NAN HAGGAED. 


Meantime, Billy’s mistress had drawn one of the cypress 
stump seats to the fire-place, seated herself on it and lifted 
the lid of the oven, letting out an appetizing odor. 

‘‘The squirrel’s brown and tender,” she said, “and 
now ITl stir some bene into the hom’ny, and then make 
some Yupon tea. The Yupon grows wild, but it’s first- 
rate tea. I’ve got a corn-dodger and some cassava pone 
already cooked. I don’t know what made me bake ’em 
to-day, only I felt in my bones that I was goin’ to have 
company. Never did have any company. Nobody lives 
here but niggers, and they’re afeard of the fort. They 
wouldn’t come up here for anythin’. They steal my chick- 
ens and eggs, though. Me and Gasker don’t ’gree. He’s 
always threatened me and Banjer, but he’s kinder ’fraid of 
us. He knows Banjer’ s mighty strong in the arm, when 
he gits mad, and he knows I’ve got pap’s old gun — you 
see it yonder — and I can shoot her too. When pappy died 
— almost before he was cold in the ground — this Gasker, 
he came here to be overseer. Mrs. Brent put him in this 
place. He don’t know much about overseein’ on a farm, 
but he was an old crony of hers, I reckon, leastways, I 
think he’s knowed her and done things for her, and she’s 
helped him out of some scrape — jail, I spec’, from the 
way I heard the two of ’em talkin’ once. Well, he came 
to be overseer, and he and Cora jDut me and Banjer out of 
the house in no time. I didn’t know where to go. I had 
lived there all my life. I didn’t know about any other 
place. I wouldn’t stay with the niggers, and I had no 
money to go away, so I came here and brought the things 
we had in the other house. It was a scary-lookin’ place 
when we first took possession. We fought out all the bats, 
and me and Banjer patched the roof and made them little 
rooms and put up the shelves and fixed the chimley and 
the fire-place. We worked odd times for a whole year 
. afore we got things kind of decent. Now we live here right 
comfortable. Nothin’ bothers us. A nigger started to 


KAK HAGGAUD. 


151 


come up here to steal one night. He stumbled against 
Billy at the door there, and got butted clean down the lad- 
der. He thought it was the devil. A goat’s eye shines 
like a ball of fire in the night. We ain’t been ’sturbed 
since. 

‘‘ But how do you live?” Nan asked, greatly amused 
and interested. 

‘‘ Oh, we don’t need to buy much. Everythin’ to eat 
nearly is right out there to our hand — figs, and melons, and 
paw-paws, and bananas and oranges, and the wood’s full of 
game, and lots of fish in the creeks and the sea. Then I’ve 
got a cow and chickens and some goats, only the niggers 
kill ’em up. We git money enough to buy our clothes by 
makin’ baskets out of reeds and permeeter (palmetto), and 
we make moss mats and permeeter hats. I sew the hats 
and Banjer plats the permeeter — he plats it beautiful — 
and I spin and knit stockin’s to sell, and sometimes we 
help at sugar bilin’s and corn and rice harvestin’ and cot- 
ton pickin’, and then we take pay in sugar and rice and 
spinnin’ cotton, and corn to feed Billy on, and to grind into 
hom’ny on the hand mill, and mix with bene. This is 
bene I’m stirrin’ into the hom’ny now. Bene’s mighty 
nice to put in hom’ny and in syrup candy.” 

She was stirring into the hot hominy a quantity of small 
brown seeds poured from a gourd. She made Nan eat a 
handful of the little oily seeds. They were very palatable, 
of a rich nutty flavor. The bene grew all around the old 
fort, she told Nan, together with melons and tomatoes, the 
seeds of which had been planted long ago in the clearing 
that had at one time been around the fort. 

‘‘ I tliink you’re hungry,” she said, looking with pleas- 
ure at Nan’s enjoyment of the bene. 

She laughed, showing her little white teeth in contrast 
to her sun-tanned sldn. She had a wonderfully shrewd, 
pleasant little face, in spite of her neglected hair and the 
sunburn. 


153 


NAK HAGGARD. 


“ How old are you?’’ asked Nan. And your name? 
You haven’t told me your name.” 

“ I’ll be fifteen in May. My age is down in mother’s 
Bible yonder, and my name is Serena Serafina Stubbs. 
Ain’t Serena Serafina pretty? Mother got it out of a 
book named ‘ Rinaldo Rinaldini.’ It’s there in the book- 
case. Rinaldo Rinaldini was a robber chief, and he had 
lots of wives. I was named after two of his wives; but 
they all call me Coot. I despise to be called Coot. 
Mother wanted me to be called my full name, but pappy 
couldn’t remember it, and he called me Rena.” 

“ I shall call you Rena, too, if you like,” said Nan. 

My own name has been changed and cut short. Once, 
when I was a happy little child and had a home and a fa- 
ther and mother, I was called Anabel after mamma.” 

‘‘Anabel!” repeated Rena, “Anabel — that’s strange!” 
she muttered to herself. Then she added: “Now they 
call you Nan — Nan Haggard. I heard that name before I 
ever saw you. I heard Edmund’s mother talkin’ about 
you to Gasker when she was here, ’bout, let me see, five 
weeks ago. They were talkin’ mighty secret, out in the 
woods; but I heard ’em. I was up in the tree gatherin’ 
paw-paws. I kept still and heard ’em talkin’ about you, 
and she said you was to be sent here, and Gasker was to 
see that you stayed here and wasn’t ’lowed to go away. 
She said maybe you would be married to Edmund when 
you come, and maybe you wouldn’t; but, anyhow, you 
must be kep’ here, and she give him some money and said 
she would give him a heap more if he done as she said, and 
he promised. He said he didn’t need money to do what 
she wanted him to do, for he would go through the fire for 
her, and she smiled at him. She was all in white, with 
her straw hat on her yaller, curly hair. My, how pretty 
she looked! But she ain’t good — I know that.” 

Nan was listening in eager wonder and perplexity. 

“ She told the overseer that I was to be sent here and 


ITAJq- HAGGARD. 


1$3 


not permitted to go away/’ she was saying to herself. 

She told him this before she had ever seen me. So it 
was all planned out beforehand. She had deliberately 
planned my ruin before she saw me. What could be her 
motive? I had never injured her. Oh, what a depth of 
treachery!” 

Rena was looking at her and saw her distressed mouth 
and the flash in her expressive eyes. 

Yes, she’s a bad one, that handsome Selma, as Ed- 
mund calls her,” the girl presently said. “ She’s got the 
real cat-eye — gray-green with a spark of yellow fire down 
in it, and she’s got the cat nature. When she smiled 
it was like a cat purrin’ and rubbin’ against you. She 
fooled me at first. I was ready to break my neck gettin’ 
her fruits an’ things; but she^ didn’t fool Banjer. He 
knows a good person, same as a dog does. She fooled 
you, I reckon. She tricked you into marryin’ that Ed- 
mund.” 

‘‘ She did,” said Nan. “ What she did it for I can not 
imagine, nor why she wanted me brought here to this 
lonely island and kept here by force.” 

Haven’t you got some money she wants to git hold 
of?” queried the girl, with her keen little eyes full of in- 
vestigation. 

No, I have no money. Her husband was my guardian. 
I had nothing but a little poor land. He was kind enough 
to buy it from me the day I married. It was not worth 
what he gave for it.” 

‘ ‘ I’ll bet it was. If it hadn’t been, Selma wouldn’t er 
let him buy it. . Maybe she sent you and Edmund here to 
git you off her hands and keep from supportin’ you. She 
wants all the money to buy fine clothes to set off her 
beauty; She was mighty keen to fix it with Gasker so you 
couldn’t get away. She told him the boats must be kept 
locked, and he mustn’t ’low you to see anybody if they 
came to the island. But nobody ever does come here.” 


154 


KAK HAGGARD. 


Oh, I must get away— I will get away from here!'’ 
cried Nau. ‘‘I don't know what they may try to do with 
me here — that dreadful-looking overseer and the woman, 
his daughter. And Edmund, he is just a tool; but I want 
to go where I will never see him again. I must get away 
from here! If only I had gone back on the ‘ Curlew ' with 
.Doctor Thorne," she thought. If I had only known I 
was not Edmund Hoyt’s wife and owed no duty to him!'^ 

‘‘ Don't be down-hearted," her small companion said, 
cheerily. ‘‘ We'll watch chances. I'll help you git away, 
and I'll go with you. If only we had some money, we 
might bribe the niggers." 

“ I have money — I have the money I sold my land for," 
Nan said. 

‘‘ Have you got it yourself, or has Edmund got it in his 
hands?" 

I gave him only a part of it; the rest is in a little 
purse tied around my neck." 

‘‘ That's good; keep it there. That Cora might try to 
get it from you, or put Edmund up to it, or old Gasker. 
They ain’t none too good. The money'll stand your friend; 
and if we can't git away by our wits, a-watchin’ chances 
and slippin' off unbeknownst, then you can talk money to 
'em. Now you can have your supper; it's ready. You 
shall eat here by yourself, on this little table, and Banjer 
and me will have our supper there on the chist, where we 
eat most times, anyway." 

While she had been talking she had deftly dished up the 
squirrel, nicely browned, and the bene hominy, and put 
them, with the bread and cassava-pudding, on a little ta- 
ble covered with a clean but patched wliite cloth. Then 
she poured out a cupful of the Yupon tea from the squatty 
metal tea-pot, and pushed the easy-chair in which she had 
ensconced her guest up to the little table. 

Now I will call Banjer," she said. He's playin’ 
still; he'd keep it up all night, without knowin’ what it 


KAK HAGGAKD. 155 

was he was wantin’ and waitin’ for. But he’ll come when 
I call him.” 

She put two fingers to her lips and gave a shrill whistle. 
With some curiosity. Nan looked at the moss curtain that 
hung before the reed and palmetto-screened compartment 
whence the monotonous thrum-thrum had issued. The 
moss was pushed aside, and a strange, impressive figure 
aj)peared — a man, tall and grandly proportioned, with 
long hair waving on his shoulders, and a mass of gray and 
blonde beard falling on his breast. His features were good, 
his brow was full and noble in shape; but as he came 
nearer into the circle of light made by the candle. Nan 
saw that the face was a blank. There was no expression 
there, except one of dreamy abstraction and placid sensa- 
tion — like that on the. face of a baby. He smiled like a 
half-awake child when Rena met him, and ; gently took 
from him the rough, lute-like instrument fashioned out of 
a gourd, the strings of which he had been twanging. 

He made this banjo, and he’s had it, or one like it, 
ever since I knew him,” she said to Nan, as she put the 
primitive instrument on the shelf. 

You play for us after you’ve had your tea, Banjer. 
Supper’s ready at last, and we’ve got company. See what 
nice company we’ve got.” 

She held the candle in its bottle stand close to Nan as 
she said this, pulling Banjo around that he might take a 
good view of the company.” 

He took no further notice than to look at Nan with a 
vague, pleased smile on his face. Nan felt moved to ex- 
tend her hand and grasp his with sympathetic warmth. 

I am glad to know you. Banjo,” she said. I am a 
stranger on your island. My name is Anabel Haggard- 
Nan I am called.” 

To her amazement he started — a flash of struggling in- 
telligence lighted his face for an instant. 

“Anabel!” he repeated — “Anabel! Anabel!” — all the 


156 


ira.lT HAGGAED. 


while holding Nan’s hand in a vise-like grip and 'staring 
into her face. 

^‘Banjer! What on earth’s come over you, Banjer?” 
cried Rena, excitedly. ‘‘ Sit down here and let me give you 
some tea. Sit down.” 

She interposed herself between him and Nan, and, re- 
peating W’hat’s come over you? This lady’s a stranger; 
she’ll be scared to death of you!” she at last got him to 
loose Nan’s hand and sit down. 

But he sunk his head on his breast, and remained in that 
position, paying no heed to Rena and the cup of tea she 
was trying to get him to drink. They heard him mutter- 
ing indistinctly to himself a word that sounded like 
‘‘Anabel.” ’ 

‘‘ I never saw him like that — exactly — since pappy died. 
He used to have spells when I can first remember. He 
would get out of his head and talk all sorts of wild things. 
But he hardly ever says a word of late. You’d think he 
didn’t know how to talk. I hadn’t heard him speak a 
thing, only to mutter and sing to his banjo and his pet 
squirrel for months ’cept once when Gasker made him 
mad. Gasker beat a little sickly nigger boy one day when 
they was stoppin’ the fish creek with the fish seine. You 
ought to seen Banjer jump on him and pummel him. I 
tell you, Banjer’s strong! He talked too. I’m afraid he 
said a cuss word, maybe mor’n one. He told Gasker he 
was a coward and a scoundrel. Gasker’s been hankerin’ to 
pay him for that maulin’ ever since he got it, but he’s 
afeard to try. And he knows the niggers all like Banjer. 
He never does nobody any harm, and he’ll turn in and 
help ’em out when they’re hard pushed. He has bad 
spells with his head; he’s had ’em ever since I knowed 
him, and that’s been for ten years, I reckon — ever since be- 
fore mother died.” 

‘‘ How came he here? What is his history?” Nan 
asked, and colored uneasily the next instant, for it seemed 


NAN- HAGGARD. 


15? 


to her that Banjer must comprehend that they were talk- 
ing about him. But the momentary flash of intelligence 
was gone. The vacant, dreamy expression was on his face. 
He was eating his supper and looking as imcomprehending 
as Billy himself. 

‘‘ I don’t b’lieve I can remember how he came here/’ 
Kena said, knitting her forehead reflectively. ‘‘ I don’t 
think pappy ever told me. I think, though, he’s some- 
body that worked for Mr. Brent, or some kin of his maybe, 
though I never heard Mr. Brent say so. Mr. Brent didn’t 
often come to the island. He would come to St. Luke’s, 
and pappy would go there and settle up. I’ve heard pappy 
say Mr. Brent got this island in a trade or a speckylation 
once when he used to be mighty rich, and had big mines 
in some corner of the world — South America, I believe. 
He never set much store on the island, though"; till he lost 
most of his mone}^ He sent his wife here then to look 
after things, and she put Gasker here, and tried to make 
Edmund stay, so he’d be out of the way of whisky. First 
thing she knowed he had taken up with Cora.” 

And did Mrs. Brent know that Edmund had married 
Cora?” 

“ I — I think she didn’t know it. They must have been 
married at St. Luke’s,” and she added to herself, ‘‘ if 
they were married at all.” 

They went off once together and came back,” she 
said aloud. “ Then his mother came and separated them. 
I heard her tell Gasker that time, under the paw-paw-tree, 
that he must keep them apart. She had other plans for 
him. The other plan was to marry him to you.” 

I am so glad I am not his wife. I shall thank God 
for it on my knees to-night before I sleep,” said Nan, 
fervently. 

‘‘ That ought to be right soon, for I know you’re 
mighty tired. I hope you’ll sleep like a top. Don’t 
mind if you hear a noise in the night. There’s a varmint 


158 


. NAK HAGGARD. 


been bantin’ round my hen-house and slippin’ through the 
cracks after the chickens. I’ll lay for him to-night. May- 
be he’s two-legged^ and if he is he’ll get peppered a little 
bit to make him more keerful. Pappy’s Old gun sends 
small shot mighty straight.” 

Ten minutes later Nan was snugly in bed in the little 
clean cot behind the screen of cane and palmetto; a net to 
protect her from the mosquitoes^ that were not trouble- 
some, however, on the island with its coral rock founda- 
tion, clean sand beaches and freedom from marshes. 

For some time she could not sleep. The strangeness of 
her surroundings, the old fort with its suggestions of 
blood and death in the past and “ ghosses ” in the pres- 
ent, the weird hooting of an owl in the woods outside, the 
cliirping of insects, and for a long while the low thrum- 
thrum of Banjo’s mandolin, kept her wakeful and won- 
dering. Then there was the ever-recurring questions: 
Why had Selma Brent done this great wrong to her? and 
what should she do to get away from the island — away 
from the possibility of seeing Edmund Hoyt again? 

But, oh, thank Heaven, I am not bound to him! He 
is Cora’s husband, he is not mine,” was the comforting 
thought that came after the perplexing conjecture. And 
with these consoling words upon her lips and a vision of 
Cyril Thorne’s manly face flitting across her tired brain. 
Nan fell asleep in the old fort to the monotone of Banjo’s 
mandolin and the hoot of the horned owl outside. 


CHAPTER XX. 

WAKING IN THE OLD FORT. — GASKER’s SCHEME. — THE 
LITTLE SPIT-FIRE. 

The sun shining brightly after the stormy night, and 
peeping into the fort through the port-holes and the many 
crevices in the walls, awakened Nan next morning from 
her refreshing sleep. She lay a moment looking up at the 


N’AIS' HAGGARD. 


159 


strange ceiling over her head. The palm-leaf thatching, 
though fairly impervious to rain, permitted the sun-rays 
here and there to filter through the translucent leaves. 
The vines, that almost hid the walls, had crept up to the 
ceiling and thrown a green network in places over the 
golden brown thatch. As Nan looked, she saw a brown 
chameleon spring upon one of the vine branches directly 
overhead. She was too well accustomed to the chameleon^s 
cousin, the lizard, to feel afraid, and she watched the 
creature as his transparent skin gradually took the green 
color of the vine leaves. 

Presently he darted away, and when Nan saw him next, 
he was brown again, and in the act of pouncing upon a fly 
on the screen-like wall of her bedroom. 

She could hear Rena moving about outside. Chiding 
herself for laziness, she rose, dressed quickly and went out* 
Her little hostess turned round from the fire, and said the 
breakfast was ready, all but the fruit. The fresh figs and 
melons could be gathered in ‘a few minutes, as there was 
plenty all around the fort. 

‘‘ Let me gather them,’^ Nan said, and armed with the 
reed-basket, she went down the ladder. As she sprung 
from the bottom rung, she saw Banjo coming with a pail 
of milk. His pet squirrel was perched on his shoulder, 
and Billy, the goat, trotted at his heels. 

Good-morning,’’ Nan cried out. 

He lifted his head, and his blank, child-like face instant- 
ly became strangely agitated. The pail of milk trembled 
in his hands. He set it down mechanically and continued 
to stare at Nan, muttering plaintively some word that 
sounded like her own name — ‘‘ Anabel, Anabel,” repeated 
over and over again. 

It must be that my face, being strange, frightens 
him,” thought Nan. I hope he will get used to me and 
like me. He doesn’t look like a mindless person. It is as 
though his mind were asleep, and would wake up. He is 


160 


NAN IIAGGARI). 


not repulsive. It is the long-neglected hair and beard ,tliat 
give him that wild look. I wish I knew his history, and 
whether he has always been wrong in liis head.^^ 

She gave him a glance full of gentleness as she passed 
him. His eyes were fastened on her, and she wondered at 
the look in them. It expressed anxious, almost agonized, 
struggle. Was he trying to say or to remember something 
that eluded his maimed intelligence? 

Presently he shook his head sadly; but he did not offer 
to move on, though Billy butted gently against his knees 
by way of reminder. 

Eena’s treble, as she called to him from half-way up the 
stairs to “ come along,” roused him, and he picked up the 
bucket of milk, and, carrying it carefully, ascended the 
ladder stairway. 

Nan, meantime, was looking about her and enjoying the 
freshness of the morning and the novel sights and sounds. 

Birds were singing and twittering, glancing about on 
bright wings. Butterflies, some small, others large and 
gorgeously colored, were hovering over the blossoms that 
spangled the grass and the vines. 

She looked up at the fort. It was almost a mass of 
vines. Clambering up the sides of the supporting arches 
and twisting about them were the great, rough brown 
stems of wild grape vines, the thick, dark-green of the 
bamboo and the trumpet-vine, together with wild ivy and 
yellow jasmine. These had overgrown the walls and roof, 
and the different shades of green, the spikes and clusters 
of red and yellow blossoms turned the ruined old structure 
into an object of living beauty. 

Ellen Douglas’s lodge on the island in Loch Katrine 
was not half as romantic as this,” said Nan to herself. 

Then she looked around her. No large trees obstructed 
her immediate view. There had been a cleared and culti- 
vated space around the fort in past times. Fruit-trees and 
melon-vines and vegetables had been planted here. The 


ISTAlSr HAGGARD. 


161 


forest was fast reclaiming the ground, however. Young 
paw-paw and pecan and wild plum-trees were growing up 
into goodly saplings; but here and there among the wild 
undergrowth were fig and orange and pomegranate-trees, 
while tomato and melon-vines ran in and out among the 
bushes, springing from the seed of the fruit that constantly 
rotted and enriched the ground. 

Some ripe figs lay on the ground under a tree close to 
Nan. They were the first fresh figs she had ever seen. 
She was soon turning the golden skin of one of them inside 
out and tasting the red, delicious pulp. 

Further on she found a fig-tree of a different species, 
with large, dark-blue fruit, a rich-looking and luscious 
variety. She climbed into the low branches and began to 
fill her basket, throwing some of the fruit to a hen and 
chickens of the black game species that had been following 
her about. 

All at once as she glanced down she saw a man’s tall 
shadow approaching. She sprung from her perch and 
confronted Gasker. 

The overseer looked even more villainous and bandit- 
like by daylight than he had seemed last night. His 
swarthy face was nearly covered with coarse, black beard, 
his small black eyes gleamed under shaggy brows, his 
coarse lips parted in a grin that showed his strong, yellow 
teeth, as Nan stepped back involuntarily, frightened at his 
sudden and repulsive appearance. 

‘‘ I won’t hurt you,” he said. ‘‘ I’ve come to take you 
to te cabin. It’s fixed up for you— got nice bed and 
cheers?- an’ old nigger woman to cook for you.” 

I don’t want to go to any cabin,” Nan said. I like 
the fort, and I want to stay in it while I am on the island.” 

‘‘ Te old fort not fit place for you,” he returned. It 
old, damp, rotten place, not fit for sweet little chickurn 
like you. Te cabin nice, cleaned good. No ghos’. I 
come tere to see how you do ever’ day.” 


162 


KAN HAGGAKD. 


He came close to her and grinned do^vn into her face. 
She stepped back, terrified. 

I will stay here in the fort. I will not go to the 
cabin/’ she said, with decision. 

His face darkened. 

I make you,” he said, threateningly. “ I take you 
up an’ car’ you, an’ shut you up. Tam! I will.” 

“You have no right to. How dare you take me where 
I don’t want to go?” cried Nan. “ I would have you 
punished for it— the law would punish you.” 

“ Ha, ha!” he laughed. “No law here. How you git 
te law? Me myself te law on Lost Island. Niggers do 
like I say. Who you got here to frien’ you?” 

“ She’s got me screamed a shrill voice. 

Eena stepped through the bushes. The long shot-gun 
was in her hand, her beady eyes were shining with excite- 
ment. 

“ I saw you from the fort, I saw you come sneakin’ up 
here, Gasker. She don’t want to go with you, and she 
sha’n’t go!” 

“ I’ll show you, tarn you!’^ he muttered. “ What’s I 
feared of you for?” 

“ ’Cause you’re a coward, and you know it, and you 
know 1 ain’t afeard of you. You jes’ bring your niggers 
and try to take Nan Haggard to that cabin and see how 
many of yo.B’ll get hurted. We’ve got plenty fire-arms 
and ammynition between us; and us four can hold the fort 
against you and your niggers — if one of us is innocent 
an’ ’nother one a goat. Try it. You dassent do it!” 

She shook her shaggy little head, and she raised and 
shook the gun, that was taller than herself. Her eyes 
snapped; she looked ready to spring upon the overseer like 
an enraged catamount. 

Big as he was, it was evident her plucky defiance daunt- 
ed him. Her threats had their efl'ect. He was furious. 
He had supposed it would be an easy job to install Nan in 


KAN HAGGARD. 


163 


the cabin. He expected to find her passive and humble iii 
her grief-stricken and forlorn condition. He had been 
stupefied last night by Cora’s appearance and the sudden 
turn of events. He "vvas quite willing, in the emergency, 
that Rena should take Han to the fort for the night, but 
other plans had formed in his brain. He had determined 
to take Edmund’s forsaken bride under his own protection. 

‘‘ I marry te gal myself,” he said to his negro confidant. 

She must not go away from te islan’; then I bring Fader 
Anselmo here some day to tie te knot. I must hab a wom- 
an to kee|) house and sew my clothes. Cora done got mar- 
ried to Edmund tree months ago, she say. I move out 
and leaf te- house to tern, and build anudder house for me 
and tat nice leetle gal.” 

Dat one nice leetle gal for true,” responded the negro 
confidant, as the two lounged on the fence in front of the- 
cabin that was being scoured and fixed up for Nan’s occu- 
pancy. But see here, boss, dat gal’s powerful spunky. 
I seed it in her eye las’ night. She’s a fair filly. ’Spose 
she say no when you ax her to marry?” 

Ah, ha! 1 fix all tat. I done broke mustang fillies 
afore now,” returned the overseer, with a grin that dis- 
played his tusk-like teeth. 

He had seen that a bed, some chairs and a table had been 
put into the cabin, and had then hurried to the fort to get 
Nan, not doubting she would be glad enough to leave the 
gloomy, bat-haunted ruin. He was taken aback by her 
refusal to come. He was angry and disappointed. The 
plan that had been fermenting in his brain during the 
night had seemed so easy to carry out. If Nan did not 
show a proper appreciation of his kind attentions, he could 
try a different treatment. He had once been an overseer 
of slaves on one of the West India Island sugar farms. He 
knew the efficacy of a little locking up and starving. This 
method of breaking into subjection could be easily tried 
upon Nan, provided she occupied tho cabin. There was 


164 


NAN HAGGARD. 


no one to prevent him. She was utterly unfriended, and 
he was master of the island. 

But a friend and protector for Nan had sprung up in an 
unlooked-for quarter. 

She refused to leave the fort, and she was backed in her 
refusal by Eena and her gan, with old Banjo to boot. 

Gasker was afraid of dat little, spit-fire — dat little 
witch’s cousin,^’ as the negroes called the dead overseer’s 
daughter. She had always abused him and defied both 
him and Cora. 

He had seen her deadly skill with fire-arms, and he 
knew, too, that her ally and comrade. Banjo, lifid the 
strength of a giant when he was once aroused. 

He had felt the weight of his arm in one instance. He 
was cruelly beating a bound boy he had about the place, 
and the mild-looking innocent was picking his gourd man- 
dolm as he sat in the sun not far off. 

Suddenly Banjo seemed to become aware of what was 
going on. The child’s screams reached his dreamy ear. 

He jumped up, his face like a fury’s, wrenched the whip 
from Gasker, and dealt him a blow with the heavy butt that 
sent him staggering to the ground as though he were shot. 

Gasker would have driven Eena and Banjo both from 
the island if he had dared to, in the face of Selma 
Brent’s injunction that he should never molest these two. 

He was furious enough now to jumj) upon the girl and 
beat her to death; but he was cowed by her eye and the 
gun. He shook his fist at her and broke into a foul tor- 
rent of cursing. 

‘‘ Jabber away,” she cried, laughing. ‘‘ Only you keep 
your distance, and let us alone.” 

‘‘ I not let you lone! Tam! I drive you out tat fort. I 
smoke you out! Tam leetle spit-fire!” 

Smoke, indeed! Smoke your pipe, you ugly wolf!” 
Eena called after liim as he strode away, muttering as he 
went. 


KAK HAGGARD. 165 

Oh, Rena, he means to set fire to the fort and burn us 
up,^’ Nan said. 

—Does he? Well, we’ll let him try it,” answered the 
girl; but she changed countenance and laughed uneasily. 

‘‘ Surely Edmund Hoyt ought to have some authority 
here. I believe I will tell him of Gasker’s conduct and 
his threats,” Nan said. ‘‘ He may have some sense of 
honor. He hasn’t shown any to me; but then he has been 
acting under his mother’s influence. I blame her most for 
what happened to me. It was her wiles and my own igno- 
rance of the world and romantic notions got out of books. 
Edmund Hoyt is hardly responsible for what he does.” 

She was reflecting aloud ; but Rena’s keen black eyes 
were watching her closely. 

Rena was uneasy. She knew how much they were at 
the mercy of Gasker. He could make the negroes half 
drunk, and they would help him to burn them alive in the 
fort, or to do any other fiendish wrong that hate or passion 
prompted. 

“You could see Edmund to-day, and tell him about 
Gasker, and ask him to send you away from the island. It 
do some good,” she said. “ It all ’pends on Cora. 
She manages to have her way here. Old Gasker hisself is 
afraid of her temper. He ain’t goin’ to let you go off the 
island, for one thing, ’cause Mrs. Brent is to pay him big 
money to keep you here, and another thing, he’s done 
fixed his eye on you to marry you. ” 

“ Hush, Rena!” Nan cried, shivering with disgust. “ I 
am going at once to see Edmund, and to find if I can not 
get a boat to take me to St. Luke’s. I must get away to- 
day — at once.” • 

“ Wait until the sail-boat comes from St. Luke’s. It 
will come to-day. Let’s have some breakfast now, and 
when it’s cool this afternoon, we’ll go to the white folks’ 
house an’ see Edmund.” 


166 


NAN HAGGAKD. 


CHAPTER XXL 

Nan rested through the hot midday in the cool fort, 
shaded on its sunny side by the great, moss-hung live-oak, 
and pervious to the sea breeze through its portals and crev- 
ices. 

Rena kept a lookout through one of these little round 
port-hole windows for the island’s boat, which would prob- 
ably come from St. Luke’s to-day. Sure enough, in the 
afternoon its white sail was ‘seen to glitter in the sunshine, 
and shortly after a loud ‘‘ Halloo!” from the negro boat- 
hands announced that it had landed at the pier. 

‘‘ They can’t have any excuse that there’s no boat to 
take you away,” said Rena. “ The ‘ Heron’s ’ come, and, 
besides, there’s two little row-boats at the landing. You 
can walk by there and look at ’em. It’s time now to get 
ready to go to the house and have your talk with Edmund. 
Fix your hair at your little glass. Y’ou’ll have to face 
that Cora, and I do want to make her feel small. She 
thinks she’s done a big thing to take Edmund away from 
you; and I s’pose he thinks you feel cut up about his de- 
sertin’ you. He’s a big enough fool to think it.” 

They went by the landing and walked out to the end of 
the pier, where they saw the ‘‘ Heron,” securely fastened 
inside the boat-house. The two small row-boats were also 
secured to cypress posts by iron chains and locks. 

The big house, or “ the white folks’ house,” as it was 
called by the negroes on the island, was merely a four- 
roomed log cottage, with piazzas all around it — rather di- 
lapidated and time-stained. A broken fence, overrun with 
vines, inclosed a yard full of neglected shrubbery and a few 
old live-oak-trees, under which were placed benches, while 
from limbs of one of the trees hung two hammocks. 

In one of these Cora lay, fanning herself with a palm 


NAK HAGGARD. 


167 


leaf. Edmund was stretched out on a bench just below 
her, trying to get up a fight between two of the half dozen 
dogs that surrounded him. Three or four negroes were 
looking on, for it was Sunday, and they had nothing to do 
that day but to lounge about, fish and sleep. 

They stared at Nan as she came up accompanied by 
Rena and followed by Banjt), who played with his squirrel 
and seemed not to notice anything beside. 

But heTl rouse if we^re bothered, and back us like a 
good fellow,’^ Rena said. WeTl leave Billy to hold the 
fort; he’s better than a bull-dog. He’ll lie up there, right 
at the top of the ladder, and if anybody tries do come in 
that don’t belong there, why, Billy’ll send him about his 
business with a pain in his stomach!” 

An exclamation from the negroes and the bark of the 
dogs gave warning of the approach of the two girls.“^ 

Edmund sprung quickly to a sitting posture, pulled his 
palmetto hat over his brow, and watched Nan’s approach 
from under its broad brim. He had the grace to color and 
look ashamed, though he tried to laugh off his awkward 
feeling as he said Good -morning. ” 

Cora affected to titter mockingly behind her fan. 

Edmund was dressed in a light gray suit becoming to his 
plump, finely -molded figure. He looked very handsome 
in a flesh-and-bldod way; but Nan, who had grown years . 
older in the last few days, wondered that she had not seen 
at first the lack of soul and sense in those well-shaped and 
well-colored features. It was her own romantic imagina- 
tion and Selma’s artful cunning that had worked the de- 
ception. 

She was not at all embarrassed as she stopped before 
him. Her sense of wrong, her contempt for him, and her 
earnest purpose to get away from the island, gave her cool- 
ness and dignity. 

‘‘ I suppose you’ve come to blow me up,” Edmund be- 


168 


NAN IIAGGABD. 


gan. I s'pose you think youVe been treated awful bad. 
But it ain^t my fault; I told Selma — 

Nan interrupted him with a wave of her hand. 

“ It does not matter whose fault it is/’ she said. “ I 
did not come here to blow you up^ as you call it. I have 
been treated badly; I have been cruelly deceived by you 
and your mother. But I do ifot come here to discuss past 
treatment; I want to speak about my situation at present. 
I wish to get away from here as soon as possible—to-day 
or to-morrow.” 

That’s" against Selma’s directions; she charged me 
and she charged Gasker not to let you go away from here.” 

What right had she to give any such charge? What 
has she to do with me?” Nan began, hotly. But she felt 
the necessity of controlling herself. She went on more 
calmly: ‘‘ There is no reason in my staying on the island. 
I came here, as you know, in the belief that I was your 
wife. It is possible your mother had the same belief; if 
not, she was even a worse woman than I think her to be. 
I am not your wife, and there is no reason for me to stay 
here where you are. I do not owe any obedience to you 
or your mother. What I ask of you is only to furnish me 
the means to get away; I will pay you for it.” 

Hoyt did not raise his eyes. He had taken out his 
pocket-knife, and was whittling a stick. At last he said: 

‘‘ There’s no boat here fit for you to go in. The ‘ Her- 
on’s ’ all out of fix; they could hardly get her here, and 
she’s got to have the carpenter to work on her.” 

‘‘ There’s a small row-boat or two; they would do.” 

“ They leak like all out-of-doors; and, besides, Gasker 
can’t spare his hands from the crop to take you over.” 

I will buy the small boat of you, and trust to getting a 
hand to row me or do the rowing myself.” 

I can row as good as any hand Gasker’ s got,” said 
Rena, making a step forward. If you’ll hire or sell her 


NAN HAGGAKD. 


169 


one of them little boats, 1^11 row it to St. Luke’s — Banjer 
and me. If that ain’t fair, then I don’t know what is.” 

There was a murmur of assent among the negroes who 
had listened to the colloquy. It put the finishing touch to 
Cora’s rage. She sprung out of the hammock. 

“ What’s the use of all that mealy mouthed talk, Ed- 
mund Hoyt?” she said. ‘‘ You know what ought to be 
done and has to be done. It’s all in a nutshell. Nan 
Haggard was sent here by Stephen Brent. He’s her guard- 
ian. He’s supported her all her life. He sent her here 
because she was too bad a limb to stay at school, and she 
thought herself too good to work. She wanted to stay in 
town and be a fine lady, and she hadn’t money enough to 
feed herself. He sent her here, where she can live cheap 
and can’t get into scrapes. He paid her to come, and she 
agreed to it, and he sent you with her. Now she wants to 
pretend that you married her; that’s all gammon. Stephen 
Brent is her guardian. She’s got to do as he says till -she’s 
of age. That’s the law. He sent her here, and he ordered 
that she had to stay here. This island and all that’s on it 
belongs to him; and if anybody helps her to get away, 
he’ll turn ’em off without a cent of pay for their work. 
Ain’t that plain enough for you?” she demanded, turning 
to the negroes. 

Her brazen assertiveness produced the effect she desired. 
Edmund held up his head, though he did not look at Nan. 
The negroes, timid and accustomed to being ruled, veered 
over to the side of authority. 

“ Sartain. Hat’s plain enough.” “ We ain’t goin’ to 
help de gal; ’tain’t none of our business.” ‘‘ We ain’t 
gwine agin de boss’s orders, dat’s sure,” were some of the 
response^. 

‘‘All right. Come along, Edmund; let’s go to the 
beach and see the little niggers swim,” said Cora; and 
with a toss of her head in the direction of Nan, she put 
her hand through Edmund ’s arm. 


170 


NAN HAGGARD. 


The indignant blood flamed in I^'an’s cheek. She 
stepped in front of Edmund Hoyt. 

Every word that woman uttered is false, and you 
know it!'^ she said. I was deceived — cruelly deceived 
— into coming here by your mother and you. I was mar- 
ried to you in the presence of your mother and your step- 
father — my guardian only in name. I believe that the 
law will punish this wrong as soon as it is made known. 
Xow hear me: My one wish is to get away from this 
place. I am intruded upon and insulted here by your 
overseer and his daughter. I can expect no protection 
from you, nor do I desire any. I never wish to see your 
face again. If I am allowed to leave the island at once — 
given a boat, even if it is only the small row-boat — I will 
make no complaint, I will be silent as to my wrongs — I 
will not see or speak to your mother even. She will not 
know that I have left the island. But if you refuse my 
request, and basely and dishonorably keep me here against 
my will, .then when I do get away from here — as I shall, 
for there is a God in heaven to befriend the innocent and 
helpless — then I will make known my story, and you and 
your mother shall suffer for the injury you have done me!’^ 
Her clear, refined tones cut like steel, her eyes flashed, 
her cheeks burned, her beautiful throat swelled with in- 
dignation. The negroes looked and listened with wide 
eyes and open mouths. Even they could see the wide dif- 
ference between this girl and the coarse, blowsy Cora. 
Their exj^ressive faces showed it. Edmund felt it too. He 
looked abashed, ashamed; his eyes acknowledged not only 
Nan’s right, but her superior charm. Cora saw it, and 
jealousy and innate cruelty overflowed in her breast. She 
turned upon Nan and burst into a torrent of abuse and 
threats. 

My father would have been kind to you,” she said, 
“ but you abused him, and threatened to kill him — you 
and that crazy brat you have made your chum, and now 


NAN HAGGARD. 


171 


you will have him agin you— hot and heavy. If he does 
like he ought, you will be locked up and left to starve un- 
til you learn to be quiet and humble. You’ll have to learn 
it soon or late, for you’ll never get away from this island — 
never! Mind that, my fine lady.” 

She was silent, because out of breath, and Nan, ignoring 
her entirely, turned once more to Edmund and asked if he 
did not intend to comply with her request to be allowed to 
leave the island. 

“ I can’t go against my mother’s orders,” he answered, 
doggedly, without lifting his eyes. I ain’t master on 
the island. Stephen Brent put Gasker here to manage 
things, and Gasker’s got orders to keep you here. Stephen 
Brent is your guardian. You’d better make up your mind 
to stay here peaceable. Gasker’ 11 fix you up all right. 
I’m goin’ to walk now. I’m tired of so much fuss.” 

‘‘ I shall not make up my mind to stay here peaceably,” 
Nan said, as he walked away. The interview had shown 
her how useless it was to expect anything from Edmund 
Hoyt, or from the overseer or his daughter. These two 
were now her bitter enemies, and she was in their power — 
a captive on an island that was rarely ever visited. 

Still she had hope. She was free as yet, and some boat 
might come. Oh, it might be the ‘‘ Curlew ” would come 
to the island I Cyril Thorne, Hartley had said, would stay 
at St. Luke’s a month — and he had his yacht. What more 
natural than that he would come to the island to see her. 
He had been so kind. He had seemed to take an interest 
in her fate. She would look out over the sea every hour 
in the day for the white sail of the Curlew.” She would 
signal any vessel she might see. To-morrow might bring 
escape. 

But to-morrow came, and another and another, and no 
sail came within signaling distance of the island. The 
dwellers in the old fort kept up a constant watch, not only 
on the sea, but oi; the fort itself. They apprehended an 


NAN HAGGARD. 


172 

attack instigated by tlie overseer or bis malignant daugh- 
ter. They remembered Gasker’s threat to burn the fort, 
and Cora’s intimation that Nan and her ally would be 
locked up and starved into submission. So they kept a 
vigilant lookout and they kept their defensive forces— 
Banjo, and Billy, the goat— in position: Billy stationed 
every night at the head of the ladder, just inside the only 
entrance to the fort, and Banjo with his arms — a stout 
stick bristling with nails — always in readiness. Eena 
cleaned up the old gun and the Derringer pistol, and taught 
Nan how to shoot the latter. These, with a big knife and 
a hatchet, constituted their armory. 

But the necessity for defense seemed indefinitely post- 
poned. The days went by and no attack was made upon 
the fort. There was no demonstration of violence what- 
ever. Nan began to hope there would be none. The 
weather was glorious, and she enjoyed rambling about the 
island, always accompanied by Banjo and his big stick, 
while Rena stayed to guard the fort. Banjo would not 
stay when Nan went. He followed her like her shadow. 
He conceived a strange attachment to her, and was dog- 
like in his devotion. He would sit and watch her for 
hours, sometimes shaking his head and muttering inaudi- 
bly. 

If she cried or seemed troubled, the big tears would roll 
down his cheeks, and he would not be comforted until she 
smiled. 

Her voice seemed to give him inexpressible pleasure. 
He would stop playing his monotonous tune upon his gourd 
banjo whenever she began to speak, and with his eyes 
upon her face, seem to drink in the music of her utterance. 

Nan found this life not unhappy or uncongenial. She 
loved nature, and was friends with all the bird and animal 
and insect world. She found many strange bright flowers, 
gorgeous lilies and tropical orchids, and air plants flourish- 
ing in the forks of the forest trees, swinging their rich- 


KAN HAGGARD. 


173 


colored blossoms down by wire-like, almost invisible stems. 
The brilliant butterflies wavering in the sunshine on their 
big spotted wings, the large fireflies . that lighted up the 
misty night with their flying torches, the many strange 
birds and water-fowl with their novel songs, and cries, and 
queer nests, all these furnished her with endless entertain- 
ment. 

She found Kena a source of constant interest. The girl 
was very bright and quick. She could read a little, and 
the two overhauled the old green baize book-case and read 
the old books in musty leather covers. Nan had the rare 
natural gift — trained by Mrs. De Lacy — of reading beauti- 
fully. Her voice was at once sympathetic and musical, 
and as she read at night by Eena’s home-made wax-candles 
or her little tin kerosene lamp, or when it was damp and 
chill, by the ruddy light of a pine torch, she had an attent- 
ive audience in Kena and Banjo, to say nothing of Billy 
chewing his cud reflectively at his post. 

So the days and nights went by, and no harm came to 
the inmates of the old fort. Once or twice Gasker crossed 
her path, but he did not speak to her. He looked at her 
in a way that made a chill creep through her, and caused 
her to walk nearer to her protector. Banjo. 

Twice, too, she happened to meet Edmimd alone. In- 
deed, the meeting was not by chance on his part. He had 
evidently sought her and followed her. Once he spoke to 
her and made some flattering remark. Undaunted by her 
look of contempt, he came close to her as she sat on the 
mossy trunk of a fallen tree inspecting the curiously woven 
nest of an oriole. 

‘‘ You’re as pretty as a picture,” he said. ‘‘You get 
prettier every day. You’re enough sweeter-looking than 
Cora, and L like you best. It’s all her mean temper. 
She’s such a wildcat, I’m tired of her.” 

“ That is nothing to me,” Nan said, quietly. “ I wish 
you would let me alone. I want nothing of you, except 


174 


NAN HAGGAKD. 


the keys that unlock the boat-house and the boats. Give 
them to me for a few minutes and I will thank you and 
forget all the injury you have done me.’’ 

The keys are in Gasker’s pocket, and you’ll never 
get them. You’d better make up your mind to that. If 
you would be sweet to me and let me kiss you as you 
ought to, because I was married to you all right, I’d man- 
age to get the keys, and we’d run away together and 
leave Cora behind. You’re mad with me now, but you 
love me. I know you do, don’t you, now?” 

He tried to take her hand. She drew it away indig- 
nantly, and Banjo, who was watching her, as usual, started 
up, and with a threatening growl made a step toward Ed- 
mund. Tire big, cowardly creature slunk away without 
another word to Nan, though he turned around and cursed 
Banjo when he was out of reach of his stick. 

That was an unlucky day for Nan. It was unfortunate 
that she was looking so* very pretty to-day. Eena had 
begged her to wear a little white muslin gown, simple but 
graceful in its sheer soft folds. Al)elt of blue ribbon con- 
fined it at the waist, and she wore on her curly head a 
palmetto hat of Rena’s manufacture, with a blue ribbon 
around it. In tWs simple costume Nan looked like a wood- 
land nymph. Edmund told the truth when he said she 
had grown lovelier. Her figure had gathered fuller out- 
lines; her little oval face was a perfect curve from brow to 
thin; her eyes had a deeper, sweeter charm. The girl had 
grown almost into womanhood through the unfoldmg 
power of emotion and trial. 

She was returning to the fort with her basket full of 
wild plums and a string of perch from the pond, when she 
encountered Gasker. He stepped out of the bushes and 
spoke to her and walked beside her. She knew it was bad 
policy to anger him, so she treated him with gentle polite- 
ness until he began to make love to her; then she repulsed 
hm with a disgust she could not help showing, and he 


KAN HAGGAIRT). 


m 


turned upon her with rage and passion in his ugly face and 
bid her beware, how she put on airs, for she was in his 
power. He had let her alone, thinking she would come to 
her senses, but he would now show her that he was master 
here, and could make her suffer for rejecting his proffered 
kindness. 

I make you cry ^ pity, pity ’ on your knees to me,’^ 
he said, as he shook his hairy first almost in her face. As 
he did this. Banjo aimed a blow at him with his stick, 
which he dodged. 

‘‘ 1^11 settle you too, you tarn ijot!^’ he said, as he strode 
away. 

Banjo would have followed him, but Nan would not per- 
mit him. He obeyed her slightest look. He seemed to 
have no idea of the nature of the attempts to intrude upon 
his lily-white little mistress. He seemed not to understand 
a word that was spoken, but he watched her face with his 
liazy, dreamy eyes, as a dog watches the face it loves, and 
as soon as he saw from its expression that she was being 
made angry or unhappy, he was ready to spring upon the 
one who had caused her to be troubled. 

Nan gave Rena an account of her day’s adventures that 
night as they eat the supper she had helped to provide. 
Rena laughed and looked grave by turns. 

He means mischief, that Gasker,” she said. “We 
must look out for him.” 


CHAPTER XXll. 

When Nan woke next morning she heard the birds sing- 
ing, but she missed the monotonous music of Banjo’s man- 
dolin. She found out what was the matter when she left 
her room. Rena Avas moving about noiselessly, getting 
breakfast re^dy, and she told Nan, in, low tones, that 
Banjo was suffering from one of his periodic attacks of 
pain in the head. 


17G 


KAN HAGGARD. 


These were not ordinary headaches. They were due to 
some abnormal condition of his brain. His sufferings at 
these times, as Rena told Nan, and as she soon saw for 
herself, were intense. He bore them heroically. Only the 
ghastly pallor of his face, his livid, trembling lips, and his 
eyes full of dumb agony and child-like supplication, told 
how fierce was the torture that racked his brain. 

He seemed to find his best comfort in having Nan sit 
beside him and feeling her touch upon his head. Nothing 
but rest and quiet could relieve him, Rena said. She 
would try to make him sleep. Accordingly she made a 
poultice out of dried herbs she took from a little bag of 
skin, and applied it to his ^ead. Then she gave him a 
spoonful of some mixture she poured from one of the little 
bottles in her medicine-chest. This medicine-chest con- 
tained a number of medicaments, manufactured by her 
father, whose life in the wilds — part of the time among 
Indians — had made him familiar with the healing virtues 
of herbs, roots and barks. These he boiled down to their 
last essence, and sealed in vials with air-tight stoppers. 

But it required more than one dose of the juice of poppy 
and mandagora to relieve Banjo. He was almost con- 
vulsed with pain, and it was late in the afternoon, and 
after another dose of the anodyne, that he fell into a sleep 
so profound that it resembled coma. 

‘‘ Go out and get some cool air,’^ Rena said to Nan. 

He will sleep now like the dead for three or four hours. 

Nan tied on her palmetto hat and took her away to the 
beach, carrying in her arms Banjo’s squirrel, lest the rest- 
less little creature should disturb his master’s sleep. 

What was her delight, on coming near the beach, to see 
the sun glinting on a white sail not far off. The vessel 
looked like Dr. Thorne’s yacht, the gallant little Cur- 
lew.” She was slowly approaching the island, tacking to 
catch the light and changeful breeze. 

Nan clapped her hands with joy. 


NAN HAGGARD. 


177 


“ Now I shall be rescued! Now we shall get away from 
the island, with its dreadful people,” she said to the 
squirrel, squeezing him rapturously in her arms until he 
uttered an indignant squeal. 

She did not see Gasker, who sat behind a clump of pal- 
mettoes watching her, as he had been watching the vessel 
before Nan ran down to the beach. 

“ You’ll git away, will you?” he muttered to himself. 
‘‘We’ll see about that!” 

Nan hurried back to the fort and called Rena. Her ex- 
cited tones made the girl run down the ladder to join her, 
and the two went back to the shore to watch the progress 
of the yacht, and to signal to her if she seemed disposed 
not to land. 

But she was evidently heading directly for the island, 
and it was not thought necessary to wave the white apron 
Nan had untied from her waist and fastened to a long 
reed. 

The two girls sat down under a cedar- tree and waited, 
half afraid to leave the beach, lest the yacht might not 
come. Her progress was slow, because there was hardly a 
breath of wind. She was still more than a mile away when 
Rena turned to Nan suddenly, and said: 

“We left the fort without a bit of guard. Banjo is as 
good as dead, his sleep is so sound; and there' is Billy — he 
followed us here. I forgot to tell him to stay at his post. 
I feel like something is wrong. I remember, now, I heard 
a rustling in the bushes by the fort.” 

She rose to her feet as she spoke, and looked in the di- 
rection of her abode. 

“ It’s on fire — the fort’s on fire!” she screamed. “ See 
the smoke!” 

“ And Banjo is asleep inside!” cried Nan, as she too 
saw the smoke rising in a thick volume above the trees. 

The girls ran to the spot with breathless speed. The 


178 


KAN HAGGAm 


fort was on fire inside. The thatched roof, the straw-cov- 
ered floor, the reed and palm-leaf partitions, they were 
burning like tinder. 

‘‘ The ladder is gone,^’’ cried Eena. Gasker has 
taken it away. He wanted Banjo to burn up. Banjo 
wonT wake before the smoke suffocates him. Banjo! 
Banjo 1^’ she cried; but only the crackling flames made 
answer. 

Nan did not speak. She felt in an instant that Banjo, 
stupefied by the drug he had taken, would not es- 
cape by his own exertions. I must save him,^’ she 
said. He had taken a strange hold upon her heart. “ He 
would die to save me, I know. He must not burn up.” 

She looked up at the ruined pile, with the quick, intent 
glance of one who forms a sudden purpose. The fort, in 
its dismantled condition, was about twenty feet high. The 
only windows were port-holes too small for even her slender 
body to creep through; but she might reach the roof — one 
side of the thatch had not yet caught fire. She could 
spring through it to the floor. She might be in time to 
arouse and save her poor, half-witted friend. As the hope 
flashed through her brain, she flung the shoes from her 
feet. She caught hold of one of the vines that covered the 
wall from bottom to top and began to climb one of the 
arches that supported the main structure. 

She was used to climbing. She had rivaled the squir- 
rels in mounting hickory-nut-trees in the woods at Hag- 
gard Creek. But the climbing here was more difficult. It 
was a desperate scramble. But she set the clinging toes of 
her little feet in among the net -work of vines and branches, 
and before these gave way she had secured a footing else, 
wheve, her fingers clutching meanwhile the vines and 
branches above her head. 

Eena watched her in breathless terror. 

Gasker ran up and called to lier to stop, to come down. 

“ What you try to do?” he shouted. It is too late. 


HAGGARD. 179 

Te place is all lire inside. You not live in tere one 
minnit. Let te crazy dog burn up. He’s no good.” 

He tried to make her fall back into his arms by grasping 
and shaking the vine to whose upper branches she was 
clinging with hands and feet. But she clung fast and 
climbed quickly, recklessly. Her aim was to reach a limb 
of the live-oak-tree that overhung the roof. Smaller 
branches of the oak came within her reach. She caught 
them and swung herself up, finding an instant’s footing 
wherever she was able. 

At last her foot was on the limb that stretched half-way 
across the roof. It was almost horizontal, and she walked 
lightly upon it imtil she was over the blazing roof. A cry 
went up from those below. They saw. her spring upon the 
roof — it seemed to them right among the flames — but she 
had found a part which was not yet afire. The light- 
thatch gave away as she sprung up it, and she went 
through down to the floor, eight feet beneath, landing 
unhurt, but in the midst of blinding smoke and the still 
burning straw that covered the floor. 

The light partitions were crackling and blazing; the 
puncheon floor was catching fire in places; the pungent 
smoke was suffocating; the roof overhead was being ra^nd- 
ly consumed, and the burned fragments were falling in a 
fiery shower. 

Were was Banjo? She could neither see nor hear, for 
the smoke blinded her eyes, the roaring of the fire filled 
her ears. 


OHAPTEE XXIII. 

‘‘Banjo! Banjo!” she cried, groping blindly to find 
the spot by one of the small windows where they had left 
him asleep. “ Banjo!” she cried again, her tones full of 
anguish, as the smoke choked her utterance and the heat 
of the still burning straw blistered her feet. 


180 


NAN HAGGAED. 


A groan answered her. Guided by it, she made a step 
in its direction and stretched out her hands. They touched 
a crouching body. She seized his shoulder and cried to 
him to get up and come with her. He did not stir — he 
only moaned. He was half insensible through the suffo- 
cating smoke and the anodyne he had taken. An inspira- 
tion came to Nan. She stooped down quickly. 

For AnabeFs sake!^^ she cried into his deadened ear. 

That name seemed to waken his benumbed senses. He 
staggered to his feet. She dragged him in the direction of 
the opening in the floor that had served as a door. She 
had seen it through the smoke. It was but a second be- 
fore they reached it, but it seemed many minutes to Nan. 

‘‘Jump!” she cried, and gave him a gentle push. 
‘‘ Save yourself for AnabeFs sake!” 

He obeyed her. He sprung from the opening. She 
saw him fall on his hands and knees to the ground below. 
He might be jarred by the shock, but the height was not 
great enough to kill him. 

Then she herself made the leap. She was half strangled 
with smoke. She was hardly conscious through excite- 
ment and pain, but as she gathered her strength together 
and jumped from the edge of the trap-door, she saw, with 
a feeling of sickening horror, Gasker standing below, his 
feet planted firmly, and his arms extended to receive her. 

“Tam brave gal!” he cried, as he caught her in his 
strong clasp. 

She felt his bristly mustache brush her cheek, she felt 
his breath on her face; Ins yellow-black eyes danced before 
her like thq flames that had just surrounded her. She 
struggled feebly to free herself, then her head fell back 
from his encircling arm. She had swooned away. 

Gasker bore her from beneath the burning building out 
among the group of negroes, big and little, that had gath- 
ered in front of it. In this group of black faces appeared 
two that were white — Edmund’s and Cora’s. Edmund 


KAN HAGGAUD. 


181 


looked pale and frightened; Cora had given her father one 
keen, significant glance, which said, ‘‘ I know this is your 
doing. You are only playing into my hands.’’ 

But even she looked concerned when the overseer, carry- 
ing the insensible girl in his arms, joined the group. 

“ Is she dead?” asked Edmund, in quaking tones. 

“ I don’t know. She has a fit,” he answered. “ Bring 
my horse here,” to one of the negroes. “ He’s yonder, 
tied in the bushes. I take her where she can be ’tended 
to.” 

“Not to your cabin — don’t take her there,” broke in 
Kena. “ Oh, take her yonder to the landing! A vessel’s 
at the landing. Put her on board of it. They will take 
her to St. Luke’s, where she can have good attention.” 

Gasker paid no heed to her. The negro had brought the 
horse; he gave Nan’s insensible form to him to hold until 
he leaped into the saddle. Then he took her into his own 
arms, and in a second he had disappeared, riding at a rapid 
pace through the bushes in the direction of the cabin. 

Rena ran after him. She looked around for her ally, 
but Banjo, dazed and seeming only half conscious, sat on 
the grass in the place to which they had dragged him. She 
looked toward the sea, but the bushes and trees hid the 
beach from her view. She could not tell whether the 
“ Curlew ” — if indeed it was she — had landed, 
s. As she looked, the roof of the fort fell in with a crash. 
Hardly twenty minutes had passed since the fire was dis- 
covered, but all the more combustible part of Rena’s home 
had been burned, and now the floor of solid cypress punch- 
eons was in flames. Soon nothing would be left of the old 
structure but a fragment of the coquina walls, perhaps 
even they would crumble before the heat and become a 
mere heap of ashes and ruins, which nature would soon 
overgrow with moss and vines. 

Rena thought, with a pang, of the destruction of her 
cherished relics — those bits of old furniture and books that 


182 


KAN HAGGARD. 


her parents had left her— her sole possessions. But her 
anxiety for Nan outweighed all other feelings, and she 
ran fast after the overseer, thinking, as she 'vfent: 

“ As soon as I see she is comin^ out of the fit, 1^11 run 
to the landing and tell Doctor Thorne she is here and she 
wants to go away, then if Gasker tries to keep her, why, 
heTl get the worst of it.'’^ 

But, fast as she ran, she did not overtake the overseer 
until he had stopped in front of a double-roomed log-cabin, 
larger and better built than the others, seen here and 
there among the trees at a little distance. 

He was carrying Nan into the house. He had laid her 
on the bed when Eena came up breathless. At a glance 
she saw that life was coming back to the sweet face she 
loved. The color was beginning to show in Nan’s cheek, 
and her lids trembled. Presently her eyes flashed open. 

“ She all right now. I go get some water for her,” 
Gasker said. 

Nan’s quick eyes went around the strange room, and 
rested on Eena’s face. For an instant she was bewildered ; 
then she recollected. 

“ I jumped from the fort while it was afire — I and 
Banjo. Where am I now? Is Banjo safe?” 

Banjoes safe, and you — you had a faintin’ fit,” Eena 
answered, and he — Gasker — brought 3 ^ou here.” 

Gasker!” A strong shudder ran through her. “ Oh, 
I remember, he caught me as I jumped, then I lost my 
senses. Oh, why did I faint? And he brought me here? 
Is this his house? Let us get out of it at once,” she cried, 
starting up. ‘‘ Let us run to the landing. The vessel is 
there. It is not too late.” 

She sprung from the bed and they both ran to the door. 
It was shut. They tried to 'open it. In vain. It was 
fastened from the outside. Gasker had locked them in. 

Eena darted to the window; there was only one. It had 


NAI^- HAGGAUD. 183^ 

strong, thick bars of wood nailed across it on the outside. 
They were prisoners in Gasker^s cabin. 

Nan, already shaken and unnerved by the ordeal she had 
passed through, dropped upon the bed and began to cry in 
despair and weariness. Eena tried to cheer her, though 
her own hopes were faint. 

The people in the boat will ask about you, and find 
out and come to your help,^’ she said. 

“ Who will tell them the truth? The negroes dare not; 
the others wouldnT, of course,’’ answered Nan. ‘‘ Only a 
few minutes more and we would have been saved. If we 
had not left the beach until the boat came!” 

‘‘ Then Banjo would have been burned up. You saved 
his life, ’’ said Rena, ‘‘ and your feet are all blistered, and 
your face is scorched and black with the smoke. Let me 
bathe it for you. Here is some water. Let’s pluck up 
courage. Don’t give up yet. A heap of things may hap- 
pen.” 

There was plenty of water and some towels in the room. 
The bed was clean, and there was some attempt at comfort 
in the matting on the floor — the table with a few books 
upon it, and another table on which was a bottle of wine 
and some cakes and fruit. 

They are not going to starve us yet, it seems,” said 
Rena, as she bathed Nan’s face and hands in the cool 
water, and brushed her disordered curls. Eat some- 
thin’ to keeiD up your strength. I believe in eatin’; it 
helps every time. These cakes is good,” she went on, 
helpmg herself, and pouring out a glass of the golden- 
colored wine for Nan. 

Nan could do little more than taste it, and eat a few 
figs. Even this slight refreshment made her feel better, 
and when Rena saw that her pale face looked brighter, she 
sat down by her on the edge of the bed, and said: 

^‘Now we’ll talk what we must tlo. Gasker’s got us 
in a trap. AVe can’t git out of the door, for it’s fast locked. 


184 


NAK HAGGARD. 


and we can^t git out of the winder, "’cause them bars is 
strong as iron. It’s no use hollerin’, for there’s nobody to 
come to our help. The niggers dassent come, and Cora 
wouldn’t let Edmund budge, if he wanted to.” 

“I know all that,” said Nan, gloomily. ‘‘I see no 
chance for escape. What do you think Gasker will do 
next?” 

He will take me out of this room and lock me up 
somewhere else. He hadn’t a chance this time. He 
was afeard I’d run to the landin’, and tell of your bein’ 
here. He will shut you up here by yourself and try to 
starve you into takin’ up with his terms — and them terms 
will be, to give up tryin’ to git away, and to marry him.” 

“ I would die first!” cried Nan, with horror on her 
white face. 

^‘Starvin’ is a mighty hard death,” said Eena; ^‘but 
don’t you give up. Let’s try to play fox to this wolf. 
Let’s play ’possum, I mean. You know what the ’possum 
does when he gets caught in a trap?” 

“No,” answered Nan, listlessly. 

“ He makes out he is dead, and they open the trap and 
kick him about, thinkin’ he’s jes’ a carcass, and when 
they’re not lookin’, he jumps up and away he goes. Now, 

' why can’t you make out you will give in to Gasker? Tell 
him you’ll marry him to-morrow; pretend you’re thankful 
for his kindness, and all that, and then he’ll make ’em 
bring you a good supper, and you ask him to eat with you 
— and talk and be mighty entertainin’, and then — do you 
see this here?” 

She took a small bottle out of her pocket. 

“ It’s the stuff I give Banjer that made him sleep so. 
It’s powerful strong. Pappy said too big a dose would 
knock a man’s pegs from under him in no time. Well, 
old Gasker’s a great hand for coffee, and while you’re talk- 
in’ to him and smilin’ at him, 1*11 manage to pour a dose 
into his cup— not too big a dose— though he deserves 


NAN HAGGARD. 


185 


every drop in the bottle. He'll go to sleep and Fll git the 
keys out of liis pocket— the boat keys and all. Now do 
you think you can play Opossum?’’ 

Yes^ cried Nan, hope springing up in her 

breast. If we can get out and get the boat, I will trust 
to our being able to row it somewhere, or to its drifting 
out on the waves— anywhere— so it is away from Lost 
Island.’^ 

^‘But Banjo, she said, an instant after; ‘‘we must 
not leave Banjo. 

“We will try to find him. If he is able, he will find 
us. He scents out things same as a dog. But if we can’t 
find him, we can send back — ” 

She stopped, and clutched Nan’s hand with a warning 
pressure, for the key was heard turning in the lock. 
“ Bemember, you’re to play ’possum,” she said. 


CHAPTEK XXIV. 

The door opened just wide enough to admit the tall, 
gaunt form of the overseer. No sooner was he inside than 
he shut and locked the door. Then he came up to Nan, 
who sat on the edge of the bed, her heart beating with 
fear, which she strove with all her might to conceal. 

The man who approached her looked like some creature 
half beast, half demon. A look of cunning triumph 
gleamed in his eyes — a leer of sensual satisfaction curled 
his hairy lips, and exposed two yellow, fang-like teeth. 

“ So you haf come from out your faintm’ fit,” he said 
to Nan. “ You was not mooch hurt? It haf not spoiled 
your beautee. ” 

“ My hair was wet with the bath I had just taken, and 
it was all over my face and kept it from being scorched. 
My feet were blistered a little, btit Eena has bathed them 
and they do not pain me much,” Nan answered, looking 
up at him pleasantly. 


186 


NAK HAGGAKD. 


He was amazed at the cheerfulness of her reply. He 
stared at her a second, and then his eyes dropped, and he 
said, in some confusion: 

I hope you find things comfortable here.^’ 

‘‘Yes, very comfortable, except that you deprive us of 
our liberty.’^ 

“ Ehr’ 

“Why do you lock us up like prisoners? We are yoiir 
guests.’’ 

“ My guests? — hah! — I not a fool — my birds fly away if 
liefe open te cage.” 

“ If birds are well treated they won’t fly away,” Nan 
said, forcing herself to smile into his horrible face. 

“ I treat you well, little bird. I hold you in my hand — 
I lofe you — I kiss your little red bill. ” 

He stooped over her until his breath, foul with whisky 
and tobacco, w.as hot on her cheek. He put his arms 
around her shoulders and tried to draw her to him. It 
required all Nan’s courage and self-control to keep from 
letting him see the disgust and terror he inspired. She 
quietly drew herself from his embrace, and, standing a lit- 
tle way off, looked him full in the face. 

“ Y^oii must not do that again,” she said. “You must 
not try to kiss me until we are married. It is not nice — 
it is not right. It will make me dislike you — and you 
want your wife to like you, do you not?” 

He stared at her in blank amazement. Her gentle dig- 
nity, her firm, quiet words, did more to rebuff him than 
the bitterest abuse she could have used. 

“You are one good girl,” he said, at last; “ you make 
good wife. I lofe you mooch more.” Then, as a sudden 
suspicion seized him, he glanced at Kena, then back again 
at Nan in a sharp, suspicious way. “You not playin’ 
one trick on me?” he asked. “ You too mighty sweet all 
at once — you hate me ’while ago.” 

“It was because you did not treat me right. It is kind- 


N-AN HAGGARD. 


187 

ness tlia^j makes us love people. Will you be kind to me 
— will you respect me, and will you let us two poor girls 
have our liberty?’^ 

“ I let you haf your libertee when you be my wife. That 
be soon — that be to-morrow. To-morrow I send for te 
priest. You be my sweet little wife/^ chuckling with de- 
light as he again bent over her. She could not quite hide 
the shudder that passed through her. He gave a quick 
glance of suspicion. If you gif consent, that is good; if 
you not gif consent, then you mine all the same — mine, 
fast and sure,’’ he added, as he looked around the room. 

I have not said that I would not consent,^’ Nan said, 
warned by a look from Eena. I only wished you to 
promise that you would respect my feelings until then. I 
said I could not love a man that did not respect my 
wishes. 

He frowned with vexed impatience, and made a step to- 
ward her; but the look in her eyes, her quiet, firm tones, 
held him back. With a short laugh, he said: 

I promise. 

‘‘ Thank you,-’^ Nan said, smiling gently. 

“ As soon as sun up I send to St. Luke for Fader An- 
selmo,’’ he went on. 

Father Anselmo is a drunken brute; he will do any- 
thing for money. I donT believe he is a sure-enough 
priest,’’ Rena whispered. Then she said, aloud: “And 
we’ll have a weddin’ and a weddin’-feast! I wish it was 
to-night, for I am, oh! so hungry. That little snack just 
makes me want more. You are just famished, I know?” 
to Nan. 

“ I would like to have some good coffee,” Nan said, re- 
turning Rena’s lead. “ Can’t you bring us some ami take 
a cup here with us?” she said, beaming on Gasker. 

“ Sartain sure,” he answered, prom^Dtly. “ Supper is 
cooked. I bring somet’ing to you.” 

He went out, locking the door after him. 


188 


NAK HAGGARD. 


“ Now let’s set our heads together/’ said Eena, sinking 
her voice. ‘‘ Speak low. He may listen at the keyhole. 
You played your part well. Once I thought you would 
break down, but you didn’t. Keep it up. Talk to him 
as if it was all right, and you had give in to marry him. 
After I git him to drink the dose we must keep him here 
till he goes to sleep on the lounge there. We must tell 
liim tales like that princess in the story that was in one of 
mother’s old books, burnin’ up this minute in the poor 
dear old fort. The princess told tales to her husband 
every night to make him forget to cut off her head — he 
cut off all his wives’ heads. She spun one big- yarn after 
another to save her life, and so must we. Keep in good 
heart. Don’t give up.*J We’ll make the trial, and maybe 
the good man above will help us. Folks say He looks after 
the sparrows. We need lookin’ after as bad as any spar- 
rows I ever see. Hush! he’s cornin’. Wipe your eyes and 
look gay as a cricket.” 

The key turned in the lock, and the door opened wide 
enough to admit Gasker. Through the crack a pair of 
black arms were seen handing in to him a tray, U230ii 
which were some cups and dishes, a pot of coffee and a 
plate of hot buttered corn muffins. He set the tray on a 
table, locked the door, and then pushed the table further 
into the room. 

Here’s your supper,” he said. ‘‘ Bettar as we can do 
to-night. You shall have chick’n and omilet to-morrow 
morn,” 

‘‘ This is sjffendid!” Rena cried, as she placed at the 
table the two chairs the room afforded and pushed up the 
lounge, telling Gasker to sit there and make himself com- 
fortable. 

Nan sat on one of the chairs, and Rena was perched on 
the other. She poured out the coffee, which was rich and 
fragrant. Nan called Gasker’s attention to a blister on 
her wrist, and while he was examining the burn and fond- 


NAK HAGGAED. 


189 


ling her pretty little hand, Nan was trembling all over, and 
her cheeks flushing and paling, for a side glance showed 
her that Rena was pouring half the remaining contents of 
the little black bottle into Gasker’s cup. What if he 
should detect her? What if he should decline to drink the 
coffee? What if the drug should fail of its effect, or if the 
effect did not take place until after he had left them — after 
he had locked the door upon his prisoners?’’ 

Drink your coffee, folks,” exclaimed Rena. “ It’s 
mighty good.” 

She sipped hers with a relish, and munched a buttered 
muffin. 

Gasker lifted the cup to his mouth, gave his mustache a 
side pull right and left, and tasted the coffee. He set the 
cup down, saying: 

“ It too bittar.” 

A cold chill ran down Nan’s spine. 

I will put some more sugar in it,” Rena said, quickly. 

She dropped a big lump of sugar into the cup. Gasker 
stirred it well, then put it to his lips, and tasted it still with 
dissatisfaction. 

‘‘ Coffee burnt — roasted too much, make bittar taste,” 
he said. But he finally drank the last drop. It was very 
evident he did not dream the coffee had been tampered 
with. 

Nan and Rena were alternately hot and cold with excite- 
ment. But they remembered that only the first part of 
their plan had been carried out. They must induce the 
overseer to go to sleep in this room. 

Nan plunged into story-telling. It was her forte. She 
told all the anecdotes she could remember. 

Gasker listened, interested, and laughed sometimes — 
that peculiar, gurgling chuckle. 

The laugh grew languid after awhile, and then he 
yawned. 

How glad they were to see tliat yawn. Presently his 


190 


NAN HAGGARD. 


lids grew heavy. They would drop together occasionally, 
but he would lift them again and make some remark. 

The two girls watched him in anxious suspense. Their 
one hope lay in the drug taking effect and making their 
jailer sleep so soundly that he would not wake when the 
keys were abstracted from his pocket. They could see the 
bulging shape of the keys and hear their jingle occasionally. 

The hope of being rescued by Cyril Thorne had been 
crushed by the story the overseer had told of how the 
“ meddlesome fools on that vessel had been rebuffed by 
Cora. 

After he, Gasker, had carried Nan from tlie fort, Ed- 
mund, Cora and the negroes had gone to a point near the 
beach to see the Curlew land. 

A boy came from the vessel with a package of books. 
They were for Mrs.' Hoyt, he said, sent by the master of 
the “ Curlew,^’ who hoped she was well and happy. 

“ Perfectly well and happy, tell him,^’ said Cora, 
promptly, ‘‘ and not in need of any books from him.’’ 

The boy went back with the books and the message. 

The “ Curlew ” sailed a few minutes later. 

Nan knew that Thorne must have thought the message 
came from her. He did not know of Cora’s presence on 
the island. He saw a woman standing by Edmund, lean- 
ing her hand on his shoulder — Cora’s favorite attitude. 
She was too far off, and there were too many intervening 
bushes for her face or figure to be seen very plainly. He 
believed she had sent the unkind message, and he had gone 
and left her to her fate. 

That hope was destroyed. There was now only one 
possibility of escape before to-morrow would rivet her 
chains by making her Gasker’ s wife. 

No wonder she watched the hideous face of her jailer 
with wild anxiety. 

He continued to yawn, his lids fell together more fre- 
quently. At last he got uj). 


NAK HAGGARD. 


191 


I don’t know what make me so tarn sleejjee/’ he said. 

I b’lief I go to bed. I kiss you good-night — on your 
hand, my leetle Nan. I forget not my promise. 

Nan and Eena looked at each other in blank dismay. 
What must be done? 

Suddenly a thought flashed like an inspiration into Nan’s 
brain. 

Oh, you must not go until you have heard me sing,” 
she said. Sit down a moment and hear me sing one lit- 
tle song.” 

“ I will with pleasure,” he said, and he dropped back 
upon the lounge. 

Nan began to sing. She modulated her fresh, delicious 
voice to a soft, tender cadence. 

He lay on the lounge and listened, moving his head like 
an emotional donkey whose big ears wave in rhythm with 
the music of instruments. 

Nan sung a lullaby full of swaying, soothing melody. 
It completed the charm. Long before it had ended Gas- 
ker was asleep. She still sung on, however, until his. deep 
breathing and at last his unmistakable snore was music to 
her ears. 

Another sound gave her a thrill of joy. As she sung, 
her ear caught the familiar thrum-thrum of Banjo’s gourd 
mandolin. It had come with him safe from the fire, be- 
ing hung around his neck by a ribbon Nan had given him. 

Banjo was outside, pro^bly seated on the ste2os of the 
cabin. He had heard her singing, and recognized her 
voice. This was his ^^wer — his mandolin. 

‘‘We will take him with us,” she whispered, joyfully, 
to Rena. 

The overseer now lay perfectly motionless and silent, 
except for his heavy breathing. Rena went to him and 
stooped over him. Then she lightly shook his shoulder. 
He did not stir. The drug had been long in taking effect, 
but now its power seemed complete. He did not move or 


192 


NAK HAGGARD. 


show any sign of waking when Rena took out of his pocket 
first the key of the room they were in and then a bunch of 
keys of different sizes. 

‘‘We shall have to try those to see which one unlocks 
the boat/’ she whispered to I^an as she put the bunch in 
her pocket. ‘‘Now, you listen at the window and I’ll 
listen at the door to find if anybody is stirrin’. It’s late; 
it must be nigh midnight.” 

There was no noise outside except the chirping of the in- 
sects, Banjo’s monotonous note, and the sound of some one 
snoring in the little hall. 

Rena took the loose key, fitted it into the lock, turned it 
softly, and then as softly opened the door a little, and 
again looked and listened. 

Nan, with a thought of Banjo, gathered up the frag- 
ments of the suj)per. Rena ran to the bed, snatched off a 
sheet, rolled it up tightly, and hid it under her skirt. 

“ Come,” she whispered, as the blew out the candles. 

In another instant the two girls were outside the door. 
In the hall they heard the snoring and saw the doubled- 
up, sleeping form of the negro, Gasker’s body-servant. 
•They found Banjo seated on the step. A touch upon his 
shoulder brought him to liis feet, with an exclamation of 
deh’ght, smothered by the pressure of Rena’s baud over his 
mouth. He looked up joyfully into Nan’s face, saying 
softly: “ Anabel! Anabel!” almost the only word he ever 
uttered. 

“ Hush! come with us,” whispered Nan, giving him 
her hand. He pressed it against his breast, and she felt 
there a soft lump that she knew was Dicky, his squirrel, 
nestled under his coat. So Dicky was safe. She remem- 
bered that she had him with her wdien the fire broke out in 
the fort. 

The trio moved noiselessly away from the house. Rena 
struck out for the beach, but she thought best to take a 
course that did not bring her so near the negro cabins with 


KAN HAGGARD. 


193 


the kee»-scentcd hounds. They skirted around these 
safely— all but the last one. Here two dogs ran out and 
began barking loudly. The cabin door opened, and a 
voice called out: 

Who’s dar?” 

Kena made a hurried sign for Nan and Banjo to stop 
where they were, in the shadow of some thick-leaved trees. 
The barking continued, and the voice again demanded: 

“ Who’s dar? What you doin’ roun’ here dis time ob 
night? I’ll shoot if yer don’t answer!” 

They were crouching down in the shadow, and the dogs 
were advancing half hesitatingly — for they were cowardly 
mongrels — and keeping up a barking that threatened to 
alarm the negro quarter. 

Now’s the time for my sheet!” said Rena. 

Unrolling the sheet as she sat on the ground, she en- 
veloped Banjo in it from head to foot. 

‘‘ Now rise up quiek,” she said, and step outer the 
shadow.” 

She took his hand, and guided his movements according 
to her will. 

He rose up, his' full figure wrapped in the sheet from 
head to foot, and stepped out mto the starlight, Rena and 
Nan close by him on the side furthest from the investi- 
gating darky in the eabin door. 

“ Wave your arm. Banjo,” said Rena, giving his right 
arm an upward push. At the same time she broke into a 
wild banshee wail. 

They heard a frightened ejaculation, and the figure at 
the door disappeared. The door was slammed to, and the 
rattling of iron links told that it was being fastened with 
the chain and padlock. A whistle, sounded through the 
crack of the house, called off the dogs, who, indeed, had 
tucked their tails as soon as they saw the white apparition 
and heard the ghostly wail. 

‘‘ We’re safe from him, certain sure!” said Rena, chuck- 
7 


194 


NAN HAGGARD. 


ling. ‘‘ He’ll cover ujd in bed, head and all, and say his 
prayers till he drops to sleep. Let’s get to the landing 
quick; the coast is clear for us now.” 

In a few minutes the landing was reached. The tide 
was on the ebb. They went out to the end of the pier, 
and saw the “ Heron ” at anchor a little way off. She 
was too big and unwieldy for them to manage. The small 
boat was their only chance. There were two of these fast- 
ened by iron chains and padlocks to the cypress posts of 
the pier. Rena examined both as closely as she could, 
picked out the one that looked most seaworthy, and hastily 
bailed it out with the tin pail that floated in the water in 
the bottom, while Nan found the key and unlocked the 
chain that fastened the boat to its mooring. 

Take your seat here. Nan; I’ll show you how to han- 
dle the steerin’ -2)addle. Banjer and me will set here and 
row; Banjo can pull an oar as good as anybody,” §aid 
Rena. This boat is leaky; Edmund told the truth 
about it — which is a thing he don’t often do — but t’other 
boat’s worse, and we’ll bail the water out as fast as it runs 
in. Ten miles ain’t far to go, and there’s a lot of little 
islands between here and St. Luke’s. We’ll git somewhere, 
I hope.” 

They took their places in the boat. Rena j)ut Banjo in 
the seat beside her, and placed an oar in his hand. 

‘‘Now for it!” she said, and shoved the boat out into 
deep water. 

They were afloat, under the night sky, in a little leaky 
boat. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

The wind was in their favor, but the tide was against 
them. It was rising, though the flow had not set in 
strongly. 

They soon found there was one thing more opposed to 


KAZSr HAGGARD. 


195 


their progress than the tide. This-Avas the condition of 
the boat. It leaked dreadfully, requiring hard work and 
quick movements on Nan^s part to keep it bailed out. 

Still the progress they made was encouraging, and their 
spirits were high. 

Nan felt she had a heart for any fate now that Lost 
Island was left behind, and she was free of Edmund Hoyt 
and the still more horrible overseer. So she bailed away 
with a will, and sung snatches of song as she worked. 

Banjo, too, seemed wild with joy. He broke out into 
exclamations of pleasure, and he rowed with such vigorous 
strokes that Rena presently gave both oars to him and took 
the steering paddle, leaving Nan free to bail the constantly 
leaking craft. 

They were making good speed; the wind, refreshingly 
cool, was in their favor, and the starlit night was clear. 

The frail condition of the boat gave them their only 
anxiety. All went well, however, and they had left the 
island several miles behind, when suddenly the keel of the 
boat grated upon a coral reef. A plank of the rotten bot- 
tom was pushed in, and water rushed into the boat in a 
gurgling stream. 

Bailing was of no avail. The water poured in, the boat 
filled quickly, and, slipping off from the sharp, narrow 
reef, sunk in deep water, leaving its little crew struggling 
in the sea. 

Nan could not swim at all. She sunk at once. When 
she arose she felt herself grasped by a strong arm, set 
upon her feet, and held in that position on the oyster reef, 
with the water nearly to her waist. It was Banjo who sup- 
posed her. She drew her drenched hair from her face 
and looked around for Rena. She saw her close by. Her 
arms and shoulders and her little, pale, scared face ap- 
peared above the water in the dim light. 

“ You are there, thank God!"’ exclaimed Nan. “ Oh, 
what shall we do now?’’ 


196 


NAK HAGGARD. 


Rena was silent. Nan heard her catch her breath with 
a sobbing gasp. It was now her turn to try to cheer her 
comrade. 

“ It will soon be day/" she said. A boat may come 
along then, or some time during the day. W e shall not 
drown while we stand here where the water is shallow.” 

“ It won"t be shallow here long,” Rena said, gloomily. 

The tide is rising; when it is high, the water on the reef 
will be over our heads."" 

“ Then we must drown, unless a boat comes to our res- 
cue before the sun rises."" 

‘‘Yes."’ 

Nan felt her heart stand still, as though already grasped 
by the cold hand of death. She must die so soon, and she 
was so young, and hope was so sweet. She was not to see 
another sunrise. 

“ Is there no chance for our lives?” she asked Rena. 

“ If it were only day, or there was a, moon, so I could 
see if we were nigh any land, I could swim to it, and 
bring help,” answered the girl. “ There’s little islands 
scattered all about. We may be nigh to some of ’em, if 
we only knowed. ” 

“We might call for help; some one might hear us,” 
said Nan, feeling that there was scarcely a shadow of hope 
in the suggestion; but a wave more towering than the rest 
had just broken against her chest, scattering its spray in her 
face. She felt the arm of Banjo tighten around her. She 
felt that he imderstood her peril, and that he meant to as- 
sure her he would never desert her. He would die trying 
to save her, that she knew. 

“ Let us holler, then, as loud and long as we can,” said 
Rena. Drawing a long breath, she sent forth a shrill cry 
across the waste of waters. “ Help! help! help!” 

Their united voices sent out that short but all-compre- 
hensive appeal — the cry that has so often been borne 


KAK HAGGARD. 


197 


across the destroying waves from the lips of suffering or 
imperiled humanity. 

They stopped, breathless, to listen. For a minute there 
was no sound but the ripple of the waves, those cruel waves 
that were creeping up to ingulf them. Then — 

‘‘ Listen!’^ cried Rena, joyfully. 

It was not a human voice repl3dng to their cry, it was 
the bark of a dog. It sounded as though it came from a 
good distance, but not so far as Lost Island, and from an 
opposite direction. 

Once more the two girls sent forth the shrill, far-reach- 
ing cry of ‘‘ Help!’’ Another silence, broken by the re- 
newed barking of the dog, then a light flashed out, look- 
ing so like a falling star that for an instant the girls doubted 
if indeed it were a light. It flickered, seemed to go out, 
then shone again. 

Rena made a speaking-trumpet of her hands and threw 
all the strength of her lungs into another cry. Another 
and another. Was that an answering shout coming faintly 
. through the night above the murmur of the rising tide? 
Or was it only fancy quickened by hope? The light still 
flickered, however, and the two girls renewed their call for 
help. 

“It’s somethin’,” said Rena. “The light and the 
dog’s bark shows there’s somethin’ there — a vessel or an 
island. I think it’s a boat of some sort. They’ve heard 
us, maybe, but they don’t understand it’s a cry for help. 
If we could only make a light. We can’t wait; the tide’s 
risin’ awful fast. I’m going to swim to’rds the light. You 
keep hollerin’. It’ll guide me if I have to swim back; but 
I’m going to find tha.t light, if the Blessed Virgin’ll give 
me strength. Good-^e. Keep up heart.” She seized 
Nan’s hand and squeezed it hard. “ We’ll know each 
other over yonder, if we’ve got to go; but don’t give up 
yet,” she said, and struck out bravely. 


HAK HAGGARD. 


1^8 

She swam as straight for the light as she could. Nan 
watched her little figure bufiteting the waves. 

‘‘ I brought this on her,” she said to herself, and she 
sent up a wild prayer for Rena’s safety. Then she steadied 
her voice and repeated her cry for assistance. 

Rena heard it as she swam on and on, nearing the light 
slowly — so slowly, she thought, though she Avas swimming 
with a speed that only despair could lend. She rested oc- 
casionally, lying on her back, and then resumed the active 
position with renewed vigor. Nearer and nearer to the 
light. But now she felt her strength failing her. 

‘‘ Oh, I can never reach it! I must give up!” she 
thought. “ I must give up! I will not give up! Nan 
must not die!” her heart answered; and again she struck 
out, though now so tired she felt more than Avilling — if 
only herself were concerned — to give up and sink under the 
waves to rest. 

But the light was still to be seen, and the dog, probably 
scenting her on the wind, began again to bark. She could 
hardly hear Nan’s voice now. She must have swum a long 
way. Must she give up when help seemed close at hand ? 

A thought came to her. She would try her voice now — 
now that she Avas so much nearer. Why had it not oc- 
curred to her before? 

She stopped swimming, rested a brief while, then sent 
all her strength into a cry, wild, shrill, despairing. 

It was answered before its echo died aAvay. 

Ay, ay!” shouted a man’s voice from the misty dark- 
ness not very far aAvay. “ Where are you?” 

^‘Here!” cried Rena, with almost a last effort of 
strength. 

She could barely do more now than keep herself afloat, 
but she kneAv she had succeeded. Help Avould come. 
Pray God it would not be too late — too late to save her 
friend. 

She listened for her voice. She lieard nothing — nothing 


JTAN HAGGARD. 


199 


in the direction to which her ear was strained; but sounds 
of rescue came from the spot whence the voice had issued. 
She was now sure this was a vessel. The east was begin- 
ing to brighten, and she could see before her, as she lifted 
her head, a black mass outlined against the sky. She 
heard voices, and more lights flashed out, then came the 
splash of a boat lowered into the water, then the sound of 
oars, and again the shout: 

“ Where are you?” 

“ Here,” she answered once more. 

Guided by her voice, the boat came toward her, flying 
before the vigorous strokes of oars in the hands of strong 
men. 

“ There she is!” cried a voice; and the next instant the 
exhausted girl was drawn into the boat and supported by 
the arms of her two rescuers. 

‘‘Drink this,” said Cyril Thorne, putting a flask of 
brandy to Eena’s mouth. 

She drank a mouthful of the stimulant, and as soon as 
she could speak, she gasped: 

“ Don’t mind me. Take the oars — row — row for life — 
for her life — she is drowning! She is on a bar, in water 
up to her waist, and the tide is rising over her. She can’t 
swim. Row to the south-west — oh, row for life!” 

Thorne and Hartley had seized the oars b^re the girl 
had finished her panting and broken injunction. The boat 
went flying through the water. Rena sat up and listened. 

“ I don’t hear her any more; she has stopped hollering. 
I’m ’fraid she is drowned — she and Banjo. Oh, poor little 
Nan!” 

“Nan!” exclaimed Thorne, quickly. “What is the 
girl’s name?” 

“ Nan Haggard, from Lost Island.” 

“ Edmund Hoyt’s wife?” 

“ She ain’t his wife; Cora, the overseer’s daughter, is 
Edmund’s wife. Nan’s been livin’ with me in the old 


200 


KAK HAGGAED. 


forfc. They burned the fort down, and locked us two up 
in a cabin. The overseer, old Gasker, done it. We got 
out to-night, and stole a boat and ran away. The boat 
sunk, and left us on the reef. We saw the light, and. I 
swam here. The water was up to her waist when I left 
her. I’m ’fraid she’s drowned; I don’t hear her any 
more. Oh, call her, please, I haven’t breath.” 

No need to ask. Thorne had already thrown up his 
head; his broad chest swelled with a deep breath that was 
sent forth in a cry like the peal of a clarion. 

“ Nan— oh. Nan!” 

There was half a minute of silence, filled with agonizing 
suspense; then faintly over the waters came an answering 
cry. 

‘‘ Thank God!” uttered Thorne, fervently, and Kena 
fell to sobbing and praying. 

Not for call or for answer had the oars ceased their work. 
The boat seemed literally to skim the waves like a fiying 
sea-gull. The streak of light in the east continued to 
broaden. Day was breaking swiftly, as it breaks in the 
topics. Thorne hurriedly drew a spy-glass from his pocket 
and applied it to his eye with his left hand, while the right 
stiir swept the oar back and forth in its lock. 

‘‘ I see a figure,” he said, presently; I see a head and 
shoulders above the water. ” 

“Only one?” cried Rena. “Banjo was with her. 
Banjo’s crazy, so folks say, but he wouldn’t leave Nan — 
never!” 

“ There is only one figure, I think,” said Thorne again. 
The glass trembled in his hand. “ Stop!” he cried, sud- 
denly — “ there are two heads.” 

“ Banjo’s took her in his arms; she’s little, and the 
water got up to her chin, and Banjo’s holdin’ her up,” 
cried Rena. “ Oh, Banjo! hold her fast. Blessed Vu’gin, 
make him strong!” she screamed, as she stood up in the 
boat and stretched out her arms in frantic appeal. 


KAN HAGGAED. ^01 

“ We’ll reach them in time/’ Thorne said, reassuringly. 
“ Can the man swim?” 

Oh, yes. Banjo can swim.” 

If his strength fails and he can not hold her up any 
longer, he will try to swim with her,” was Thorne’s hope, 
but he did not speak it; he saved his breath for the work 
he was doing. He and his young comrade were counted 
the best oarsmen that had ever propelled a boat in the 
waters around St. Luke’s. They proved their claim to the 
distinction by their work to-night. The boat shot across 
the waves as though it were hurled from a catapult. 

Five minutes more and they are saved!” cried Hartley. 

Thorne said nothing, but his oar cut the water with 
long, steady strokes; the veins stood out on his forehead, 
and the moisture fell in great drops from his face. 

Five minutes more and the goal was reached. Han and 
Banjo were saved. 

Han was pale and weak from the terrible ordeal. Banjo 
looked ghastly, and when they pulled him into the boat he 
fell upon the floor like one dead. Han forgot her late 
peril—forgot to thank her deliverers, forgot even to look 
at them. She dropped on her knees beside her faithful 
servitor. She lifted his head and swept the wet, gray hair 
from his closed eyes. 

‘‘ Banjo, are you dead?” she sobbed. ‘‘ Look at me. 
Banjo.” 

A hand lifted the wrist of the daft mandolin player and 
felt for the pulse. 

He is not dead,” said a voice she knew. Be com- 
forted. Let me attend to him.” 

She looked up and met the kind, grave eyes whose look 
she so well remembered. 

“ Oh! Doctor Thorne, is it you? Was it you who came 
to our rescue? I am so glad!” 

Her eyes shone with joy. Then she looked down at 

Banjo. 

r" 


^02 


NAN HAGGARD. 


You will not let him die?’’ she said. 

‘‘ He is in no danger of dying, I hope. He is overcome 
with the fatigue and terror he has passed through. So are 
you, only excitement keeps you from giving up. What 
you all need and must have is rest — a long, good sleep. 
You will get it on the ‘ Curlew.’ We will row back with 
all possible speed. Then you will go into the cabin, take 
off your wet clothes, wrap yourselves in whatever my old 
stewardess can find for you, and lie down and go to sleep. 
See, your faithful friend is reviving. He is drinking this 
stimulant. That’s a brave fellow! Now you are all right,”, 
he said, as Banjo swallowed another mouthful of the 
brandy, opened his eyes and sat up. 

His look fell first upon Nan, who bent over him; his 
dull e3^es lighted up with joy. “ Anabel!” he murmured. 
Then his glance rested on Thorne’s face. 

The first rays of the rising sun touched that fine face 
with radiance — the noble brow, the kind eyes, the grave 
yet smiling mouth. As Banjo saw this face, he started, 
his broAV contracted; he seemed to struggle more strongly 
than ever to break the chain that' bound his intelligence. 
It was many years since the poor prisoner on Lost Island 
had seen a man like this — with the stamp of intellect and 
of gentle feeling upon his face. 

To Nan, too, this face seemed worthy to be illumined by 
the virgin sunrise. She smiled in deep content, as she 
drew close to Kena and took her hand. 

I said a prayer for you, dear Kena, when you swam 
away into the darkness. I prayed God would send an angel 
to help you and us — and the prayer was answered,” she 
whispered, casting a radiant look at Thorne. 

He did not hear her; he was busy making the seat com- 
fortable for Rena and herself, but her words came to Hart- 
ley’s ears. His brow darkened. 

“ He gets all her gratitude,” he thought. My arm 
did as much to save her as her ‘ angel ’ Thorne’s. ” 


NAlSr HAGGARD. 203 

The cloud did not quite pass from his face^ when she 
recognized him, and held out her little hand, saying: 

And you too came to our rescue. How thankful we 
are!^’ 

She was too worn out for further utterance. 

Thorne would have wrapped his coat around her wet lit- 
tle figure, but she would have him put it around Banjo in- 
stead. She was thickly clad, but Banjo and Rena had on 
thin, cotton clothes. Rena laughed at the idea of being 
wrapped up in Hartley's coat, but she was too exhausted 
to resist, as he and Nan put it around her. 

Nan looked at Banjo as Thorne wrapped him up. He 
was a piteous sight, with his blank, wistful, bewildered 
face and wet gray hair. Nan wrimg the water from his 
hair and beard as best she could. Then she laughed, for 
she saw peeping out from behind the beard the little sleek 
wet head and bright eyes of Dicky, the squirrel. 

‘‘ Poor, faithful dear!^^ she said. “ He has passed 
through fiery and watery trials. His good banjo is wrecked, 
but his Dicky is safe. He shall have a new, good banjo 
when I can buy one.” 

“ And now to our oars,” Thorne said. ‘‘We must get 
to the ‘ Curlew ’ as quickly as we can, and these poor, wet 
fugitives must have food and sleep.” 

It was past noon that day when Nan, leaving Rena still 
asleep in the little cabin, came- up on the deck of the 
“Ciirlew.” Her clothes, nicely dried in the breeze and 
the hot sun, had been brought to her by the kind old mu- 
latto stewardess. The dress of thin, fine wool hardly 
seemed the worse for its sea-bath, and the bright handker- 
chief tied over her black curls in lieu of a hat was becom- 
ing to her piquant face. 

Hartley was first to greet her. He came to meet her, 
and said, with a look of admiration: 

“ Who would believe you had passed through fire and 


204 


NAN HAGGARD. 


water a few hours ago? You must be both salamander and 
sea nymph 

Thorne was standing near Banjo, who sat dreamily ca- 
ressing his squirrel and looking out over the water. The 
“ Curlew had her sails spread to catch the light breeze 
that was carrying her before it through the smooth, bright 
waters. She was approaching St. Luke’s Island. Its 
white beach could be plainly seen, and the cottages among 
the cedar-trees and the wide-verandaed hotel. 

Come and sit here where you can have the best view,^^ 
said Thorne to Nan. ‘‘I have been studying the face of 
your friend here. It is a remarkable face and head for a 
half-witted being. Depend upon it, this man was not born 
with this defect. His face shows the lines of past thought. 
He has had some injury to his head. It has clouded his 
intelligence, but I do not think it has destroyed it. I 
would like to study the case. Perhaps — 

Dr. Thorne did not finish his speech. A thought — a 
possibility — came into his mind. 

“ I should like to try,” he said to himself. “ It would 
be a dangerous experiment, but it might result in freeing 
that bound and struggling intellect. ’ ’ 

He roused himself from his professional study of Banjoes 
face and head. He turned to Nan, and asked if she felt 
well and fully rested. Then he said, looking with deep 
interest into her young face: 

‘‘ I do not want to force your confidence, but I would 
like to have you tell me about yourself — as much as you 
feel perfectly willing to tell of your life before I met you, 
and of what has happened to you on Lost Island. I have 
an object in wishing to know your histoiy. I feel sure you 
have been wronged by those who should have protected 
you. I want to find out, if possible, their motives. It 
may be I can be of service to 3"ou.” 

‘‘ I will tell you everything,” Nan said. ‘‘ You are so 
kind; I feel that you are my friend.” 


NAK HAGGARD. 


205 


And she told him the story of her life from the time she 
was made an orphan in that strange, terrible way to the 
events of last night. She told him of her father— of his 
mine of Bright Hopes, and the cruel disappointment— the 
disappearance of the gold vein, which cause the deserted 
mine to be renamed Dead Hoi3es. She told liim how 
Stephen Brent had bought the mine of her and the 
tract of land lying on Haggard Creek the morning 
she was married; and she did not hide from him how art- 
fully she had been deceived by Selma into marrying her 
son, and how she had sent the two, immediately after the 
marriage, to that dark corner of the world. Lost Island, 
and had promised pay and continued position to the over- 
seer on consideration that he would prevent her leaving 
the island. 

Thorne listened without comment, only asking a quiet 
question now and then. His face betrayed his interest, his 
sympathy, and his strong indignation when he heard of 
the deception that had been practiced upon her, and of the 
insults and dangers she had endured on the island. 

When she had ended he said, tenderly: 

‘‘ My child, this is a strange, sad story. I am glad you 
have told it to me. I think I understand why you have 
been made a victim, innocent and trusting as you were. 
At least, I have formed an idea of the motives that im- 
pelled this woman. Her son is merely a blind tool. Her 
husband is also an instrument in her hands, but with him 
may lie the first wrong. That remains to be found out, 
and I will do my best to find it out. I am going to the 
city on the return trip of the steamer in a few days. I 
will look into your affairs closely, and will consult a shrewd 
lawyer. Meantime, what do you wish to do — where do 
you wish to go? In a word, what are your plans?” 

‘‘ I have none,” said Nan. ‘‘ I am a leaf adrift upon 
the waves.” 

“ Let me direct your course for a little while then. In 


201 ) 


KAN HAGGARD. 


a few moments we will land at St. Luke’s. A mile back 
from the beach, in a pretty cottage, lives Hartley’s mother, 
a refined and lovely woman. She has lived there for years, 
a recluse with her books and her music, even while her son 
was away at school. But she ought to have companion- 
ship. A bright spirit, such as yours, would be a boon to 
her. She would be more than glad to have you for a com- 
panion; and little Kena could stay with you and be a helper 
in the light liousework, if she liked. Do you think such 
an arrangement, for awhile, would please you?” 

It would be all I could wish. You are most kind to 
make it for me,” Nan said, lifting her lovely, thankful 
eyes to his, and then blushing with happiness as she met 
their gravely tender look. I will not be dependent, nor 
shall my friends,” she hastened to add. I have with 
me, around my neck, in a little leather bag, the money 
my unlucky heritage brought. It will pay my board — and 
yes — and Banjo’s. I must take care of Banjo.” 

Banjo shall be my care — my patient, if you will per- 
mit,” said Dr. Thorne. “I am deeply interested in his 
case. It may be very valuable to me, and possibly I may 
be of help to him.” 

“ Is it so? Oh, I shall be so glad if you can help Banjo. 
How good you are! How kind of Providence to send 
you to our help. Has not everything come out so well, so 
brightly, and only a little while ago all seemed so dark. 
But,” she added, presently, are you quite sure the lady, 
your friend’s mother, will like to have me stay with her?” 

‘‘ Her son shall answer for her,” Thorne said, and he 
beckoned Hartley to come near, and told him of the ar- 
rangements he had proposed. 

‘‘ Miss Haggard wishes to be sure of her welcome,” he 
said. 

The 3^oung man’s face was radiant. 

‘‘ She will be more than welcome,” he said. My 
mother was longing to have a young companion for her 


JTAN- HAGGARD. 207 

own sake and for mine. She could not have one that 
would please her better; and as for me — 

\ His eyes met ISTan^s, and his handsome face flushed rosily, 
fail’s too colored under his look of ardent admiration. Dr. 
Thorne saw the expression in the eyes of both. A look of 
surprise, a shadow of pain crossed his face for an instant, 
but soon his brow resumed its wonted calm. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

Later in the afternoon the ‘‘ Curlew shut her white 
wings at the pier of 8t. Luke^s Island, and Thorne, ac- 
companied by Hartley, went ashore to get a carriage to 
convey his triple charge to their new home. 

Nan heard of the carriage with a feeling of relief. She 
shrunk from the thought of walking past the hotel and the 
little group of cottages, with a shop or two and a pretty 
Gothic church, that clustered stragglingly about it. 

The shaded veranda of the hotel had groups of men and 
women standing looking out, lounging on the settees, or 
swinging in hammocks, idly waving palmetto fans, and 
enjoying the dolce far nienie of life upon a half -tropic 
island. 

St. Lukov's, though not a fashionable winter resort, al- 
ways had its one large hotel, and the cottages, lodges, and 
villas scattered over its circuit, occupied in fall and winter 
by health or pleasure-seekers. ^ 

Nan realized that she was hardly presentable before these 
well-dressed denizens of the island. Her clothes and shoes 
had been carefully dried and brushed; but the red-and-yel- 
low head-covering, though becoming, was not conven- 
tional; while Renan’s bare brown legs and feet — she had 
kicked off her coarse shoes when she set out to swim — 
showed conspicuously below the short skirt of her blue 
calico gown. But Rena was too happy to be conscious of 
her deficiencies. She <yas looking with delight at the 


NAN HAGGAIID. 


^08 

scene before her — thinking the white, wide-verandaed hotel, 
with its flag flying from the cupola, the grandest of build- 
ings; admiring the women in muslin gowns, the men in 
blue and white flannel, and the tiny painted pleasui^e-boats 
that lay rocking at the pier. Not a thought of her own 
appearance came into her head until Nan said, laughing: 

I wish Banjo had a harp. We would march out and 
go to the hotel, and play and sing for pennies. W e look 
like a band of Italian street minstrels I saw in the city. I 
wonder what Mrs. Lytton will think of our appearance?’’ 

Rena looked down at her bare feet, and involuntarily 
drew them back. But the short skirt would not hide them. 

“We do look comical by the side of them fine folks,” 
she said; “ but they’re just outer the band-box, and we 
are outer the fire and the salt waves. Banjo’s all rights 
though — Banjo looks beautiful! The doctor’s black clothes 
fits him like they was made for him. He looks like the* 
picture of a king in that old Shakespeare book you used to 
read. You wouldn’t know anything was wrong till you 
looked close at him. His eyes ain’t like other folks’; 
they’re kind of helpless and wanderin’ and pitiful — like a 
baby’s when you lay him on the grass and make believe 
you’re goin’ to leave him there. I’ve nursed babies, and 
I’ve seen ’em look like Banjo does this minute. He’s 
tryin’ to make out what it all means. He knows this 
ain’t Lost Island. It’s the first time he’s seen any shore 
except Lost Island for goodness knows how many years. 
He ain’t put his foot off the place since I came there when 
I wasn’t much mor’n a baby. He’s troubled now tiyin’ to 
think. See how he looks at you. Nan, and holds to your 
hand like he was afraid he was goin’ to lose you.’^ 

Nan smiled up reassuringly into the face of the strange 
being, and pressed the big hand that clung to her like a 
child’s. Yes, it was pitiful to see the look in the eyes of 
this man — formed in such a grand mold— looking pict- 
uresque, even distinguished, now that he was dressed in 


KAK HAGGARD. 


209 


black cloth, with his long, iron-gray hair combed out by 
Kan and falling in wavy masses away from his broad, high 
brow. He looked like some grand benignant genius whose 
isoul had been stolen away by the spells of an envious sor- 
cerer, leaving him astray like a child in a world that be- 
\vildered him with dim visions of the past, and shadowy 
gleams of intelligence coming now and then to perplex and 
sadden him. 

But for these recurrent bewildering gleams he would have 
been happy as a child in Kan’s presence. He kept by her 
side with a half -protecting, half-clinging devotion, and she 
in turn had felt a strong bond of sympathy between them 
even before he had saved her life in the midst of the rising 
waves, as she had rescued him from the flames. 

There is the carriage!” Bena cried, excitedly, as a 
hack drove to the pier. 

Dr. Thorne got out and came on board the yacht. He 
carried a large bundle in brown paper which he handed to 
Bena, telling her to go below and see what was inside the 
big package. 

She went, and presently came back on deck, her dark 
little face glowing with smiles under a neat straw hat 
trimmed with dark-blue ribbon, and her feet incased in 
pretty low shoes and dark-blue stockings. 

She held out another hat of white straw, with a simple 
trimming of black ribbon. 

For you,” she said to Kan, and this is for you to 
put on to hide your crumpled dress.” 

It was a long raglan of some thin, gray material, and 
when Kan had put it on and Bena had buttoned it all 
down in front, it seemed with its loose sleeves a graceful 
and becoming garment. The hat, too, fitted perfectly. 

It was almost a shame to take off that red and yellow 
handkerchief, it looked so picturesque over your dark 
curls,” Dr. Thorne said. 


210 


NAN HAGGAKD. 


It is SO kind and so thoughtful of you to do this/’ Nan 
said. ‘‘ And how could you fit us so well?” 

‘‘Oh! I took your measure with my eye. I have the 
organ of size well developed. The stewardess helped me 
about the shoes. She measured Rena’s little feet on the 
sly. We will go now. Hartley has gone on ahead to tell 
his mother of our coming. You will find her a lovely, re- 
fined woman. She could grace a high place in society, but 
she has had trouble, and prefers to live in seclusion.” 

“ I am afi-aid we will seem intruders.” 

“ No; it is, as I said, best for her to have a companion, 
young and cheerful, but not too lively, sweet-tempered and 
intelligent.” 

Nan colored with pleasure. 

“lam glad you think so well of me. I hope I will de- 
serve it,” she said. 

“ Think well of you?” 

He looked down at her sweet, blushing face as she 
walked by his side to the carriage. She lifted her eyes at 
the same instant, and the glow deepened in her cheeks. 
She read a tender as 'well as admiring interest in those 
deep-gray eyes. 

A drive of little more than a mile brought them to the 
home of Mrs. Lytton — Graywood Lodge, it was called, 
after the name of the former owner. It was surrounded by 
wide, inclosed grounds entered through a large, arched 
gate. 

They drove through this gate beneath the arch of heavy 
carved wood-work, and through the grounds of mingled 
wild and planted trees — orange, pomegranate and fig-trees 
— growing among wild laurel and sea myrtle and cedar. 

They passed two dilapidated summer-houses overrun >vith 
roses and wild bramble vines, and then on to the house. 

Nan had expected to see a new cottage of the ordinary 
design and green and white style of the hotel. She was 
enchanted to see a time-mellowed building with four sharp 


NAN HAGGARD. 


211 


projecting gables — a half-Gothic design like the church. 
Indeedj they had both been built by the same man, a rich 
old bachelor, the former owner of the island, long since 
dead. 

Tall oleander and Cape jasmine bushes in bloom lined 
the walk to the door of the porch. 

On the steps stood Hartley and a lady, which must be 
his mother, thought Nan, for her hand rests on his shoul- 
der as he stands on the step just below her. But how 
lovely she is! 

She wore a long, white dress bound at the waist with a 
black cord. Her shape was slender and inexpressibly 
graceful, her face classically beautiful with the charm of 
mystery and melancholy in the large dark eyes, the lovely 
mouth, and pale, creamy brow and cheek. 

She and Hartley came to meet them. She walked with 
a floating, undulating motion, and her smile and manner 
charmed Nan as she extended her hand to welcome her. 

If Nan had never seen Selma Brent she would have ac- 
corded a warm liking to this lovely woman who received 
her so kindly, but she had learned, alas! the bitter lesson 
of distrust. 


CHAPTEK XXVII. 

The feeling of distrust came to her that first evening in 
Graywood Lodge. There she felt the first premonition of 
the shadow that was destined to chill her heart. 

But for this passing shadow the evening would have been 
perfect, Mrs. Lytton was so gently, so winningly kind. 
She took Nan up to her room, a pretty chamber with a 
long, deep window in the gable opening on a balcony hung 
with golden-blossomed vines. There was a little room 
opening into it for Rena. Nan saw a large white-lined 
bath-tub full of fresh water, and lying on the bed was a 
pile of snowy clothes. Pointing to these, Mrs. Lytton said : 


212 


KAN HAGGARD, 


‘‘ I want you to try to make yourself comfortable in 
these after your bath. They will do, I hope, until you can 
have some clothes made. F have heard from Hartley hov' 
unfortunate you have been. I hope your troubles are now 
over. I am going now to shorten something of mine for 
Rena to put on. I am so slender my gowns will fit you 
both, only they are too long.’’ 

She was gone before Nan could thank her. 

The bath and the change of clothes were most refresh- 
ing. The simple white muslin gown fitted almost perfect- 
ly, and with the sash of blue ribbon and the black slippers 
and white stockings that Nan found beside it, made a 
charming toilet. A few fiowers fastened to her belt and 
a blue ribbon tying back her curls completed her meta- 
morphosis. Rena, too, when slie emerged from her little 
room where Mrs. Lytton had been fitting her up, did not 
look at all like the same girl who had gone into it. Her 
cheeks were glowing with the recent scrubbing; her hair 
smoothly put back, plaited, and tied with ribbon. She had 
on a short, pretty Mother Hubbard gown of white muslin 
dotted with black. Mrs. Lytton brought her down and 
exhibited her with pride. 

The little one is not so bad looking,” Hartley said to 
Thorne. 

“No, indeed; there are possibilities of beauty in the 
girl,” he answered, looking keenly at her. 

He called to her to come and talk to him. In half an 
hour he found out that there were mental as well as phys- 
ical possibilities in Rena. 

“ She is very bright,” he said to Mrs. Lytton. “ She 
must have a teacher. I should like to see her two years 
from now, if she has any opportunities in the meantime. 
She tells me Nan has been reading with her while the two 
lived up in the old fort with Banjo as a protector.” 

Nan came in while he was speaking. Hartley had been 
watching the door for her appearance. His face lighted 


N'AN HAGGARD. 


213 


with ax:l miration when he saw her. The elder man, who 
had seen many beautiful women, looked at her and felt her 
peculiar charm. It was in the innocent sweetness of her 
smile, in the soul that shone through her dark, soft eyes, 
in the unconscious grace of her slim but rounded figure. 

She was radiant with joy and thankfulness. She took 
Hartley’s hand that he held out to her, and then blushing 
at the pressure he gave it, she drew it away and came uj) 
to Mrs. Lytton and Thorne. 

‘‘It is like a sweet dream that we are here, safe and 
sheltered, after all the trials and perils of yesterday and 
last night,” she said, putting her arm around Rena- 
“ Last night we were on Lost Island, prisoners in Gasker’s 
cabin, seeing hardly a hope of getting away. We did not 
feel that we had a friend in the world, except poor Banjo, 
and we didn’t know but he was dead. Now we are here 
among kind people in this pretty house that is like the 
homes we read of, with its books and flowers and cottage 
piano. It seems too good to be true. ” 

Her eyes were shining through tears. The change 
seemed, indeed, too good to be true. She had escaped a 
fate worse than death, then she had been saved from im- 
minent death, and now she was free and in a home of 
peace and comfort. . 

“ We are glad and thankful for you, my dear,” Mrs. 
Lytton said, gently. “ I hope you will be happy here with 
us.” 

“I thank you.” And then looking at Thorne, she 
added, timidly: “ But you will not let us burden you. Has 
Doctor Thorne told you that I have some money?” 

He smiled. 

“ Yes; I have told her that you are a very rich young 
woman, and that you carry your wealth hung like a mill- 
stone about your neck, which fire and water have failed 
to harm. ” 

He pointed to the slender black cord aromid her throat 


214 


KAK HAGGARD. 


to which was fastened the little i)urse containing the price 
of her patrimony. 

‘‘You can use some of that miraculously preserved fort- 
une to-morrow buying your clothes/’ Mrs. Lytton said. 
“ Between us all we can soon make up a wardrobe for you 
and Rena that will answer until you can get a better outfit 
from the city.” 

“We must not forget Banjo. Where is heP’"^ 

“ Come and see/’ answered Dr. Thorne. “ He has 
been asking for you in his own fashion.” 

He led the way out-of-doors. The sun had set. The 
breeze came fresh and cool from the sea, and gathered 
perfume as it passed over the Cape jasmine bushes loaded 
with fragrant white blossoms. 

They followed Thorne through the shrubbery to a little 
outbuilding, half hidden by larger- wide-spreading lemon- 
trees. It was a queer little house, two rooms below and 
one above, with a peaked Swiss roof. On the porch sat 
Banjo. He was happy, for he had found a substitute for 
his lost gourd mandolin. 

Dr. Thorne had hunted up a banjo for him, and he was 
strumming upon it — playing some sweet, half-melancholy 
tune, monotonous, but melodious, like the rhythmic beat 
of waves upon the shore. 

“ This is my own especial perch,” said Thorne, “ and 
Banjo will abide with me as my guest and patient. Al- 
ready 1 think he likes me, and he seems to comprehend 
what I say to him. I want to study his case.” 

“ Do you think you can help him?” Nan asked, eagerly. 

“ I can not tell. It will take time and observation to 
know if there is any hope of curing him. He was not born 
an idiot. There is no defect in that head, in that nobly 
shaped forehead.” 

Banjo had heard Nan’s voice. He looked around and 
smiled, beginning at once to play in livelier measure. 


KAK HAGGARD. SI 5 

They left him playing, and took a short stroll through 
the grounds, returning just as tea was announced. 

When it was over and they had gone back into the par- 
lor, Hartley opened the piano and began to play. He 
dashed into a quick air, so lively and inspiriting that it set 
Kenans feet and head in motion. 

Dance, he said, nodding to her; and she at once be- 
gan a' series of steps and movements spontaneous and un- 
taught, but full of wild, fanciful grace. Never surely was 
a creature so supple, so agile, so quick to catch the spirit 
of music and reproduce it in her movements. 

Nan had often seen her dance to the music of Banjo’s 
mandolin, but to the others it was a novelty that called 
forth their applause. Hartley clapped his hands. 

Bravo!” he cried. What a boon little Rena would 
be to the ballet. Everything the stage dancers do is so 
old and mechanical, Rena has the spontaniety of inspira- 
tion.” 

The child’s dark face flushed with joy. Ambition was 
born in her young breast at that moment. But she was an 
unselfish creature. 

“ If you like my dancing I don’t know what you would 
say to Nan’s singing,” she said, presently. 

After this Nan had to sing. A song was found in one 
of the music-books which she knew. Hartley played the 
accompaniment, stealing upward glances at- the swelling- 
throat from which came those clear notes full of soul as 
well as of melody. 

You said truly, Cyril. That girl is surely out of the 
common,” Mrs. Lytton said to Thorne. “ Her future 
ought to be bright. If only she could have the position 
her gifts entitle her to.” 

Come out on the piazza,” he answered. I want to 
talk to you about her— and other things.” 

Hartley had resumed his playing. Presently he looked 
around. 


KAX HAGGARD. 


Where is my mother?’’ he asked. 

She is walking on the veranda/’ Nan replied. 

‘‘ With Thorne, as usual/’ he said. 

His face clouded and he rose from the piano, went to 
the door, and looked out. He came back and flung himself 
into a seat near Nan. For a minute he was silent, listen- 
ing to the low voices of the two outside. Then he looked 
at Nan, and asked, abruptly: 

What do you think of Doctor Thorne?” 

Nan was surprised, but she answered, promptly: 

‘‘ I like and admire him. He is so calm and strong. 
And he is good, I think — I am sure.” 

•‘‘Don’t be sure of anything,” he cried, passionately, 
“ or you will be deceived.” 

“ Not deceived in Doctor Thorne. You can’t mean that 
of your friend — your — ” 

“ My benefactor, you were going to say. Yes, I know 
how much I owe him, in one sense. I wish I could cancel 
the obligation. I shall feel its sting until I do.” 

Nan’s wide-opened eyes and pained face brought back 
his self-control. 

“ I have done wrong to speak to you like this,” he said. 
“It was foolish. I ought to have kept my feelings to my- 
self. But you don’t seem a stranger to me. I think there 
is a bond of sympathy between us. I am really as alone 
in the world as you are; and I, too, have been wronged. 
I begin to feel, to fear, that I have been wronged past for- 
giveness.” Again he looked toward the door opening on 
the piazza, and his lips shut together with a spasm of pas- 
sion that half frightened Nan. Then his face changed, 
and he looked at her tenderly. 

“ Forgive me,” he said. “ Of late I have suffered so 
much — in silence. The strain has been hard. I am so 
glad you have come. You will drive off the dark thoughts 
that come to me. They fled while you sung. And you — 
will be my friend? You will care for me, won’t you? 


NAN HAG GARB. 


217 


DonH answer yet. We have to-morrow, and many sweet 
to-morrows to see each other in. Good-night. They are 
coming in.^’ 

He gave her hand a passionate pressure, and darted 
from the room. Nan was bewildered. A sudden cloud 
had half eclipsed her happiness. She looked into Thorne’s 
face as he came in. There was keen, almost agonized 
searching in her look. If this man was not good, then the 
world must be full of hypocrisy and evil. Selma was not 
alone in being a fair-seeming lie. She hardly heard what 
Thorne was saying, until he called her attention to Eena 
coiled up like a kitten, fast asleep, on the lounge. 

“ Poor, tired child!” he said, lifting her gently in his 
strong arms. I will carry her up to her room.” 

He went out, accompanied by Mrs. Lytton, who bid Nan 
come on. 

At the door of her room Dr. Thorne, coming out, 
stopped her to say good-night, and add that he would not 
see her at breakfast. He would be gone in the Curlew.” 

I am going to Lost Island,” he said, ‘‘ to have a little 
interview with that exemplary overseer, and with Edmund 
Hoyt. I am trying to get a clew to the motives that caused 
them to act to you as they have done.” 

I think they were only tools,” Nan said. 

I am almost sure of that. But why they were em- 
ployed at all, what was the motive in sending you to Lost 
Island, and requiring that you be kept there, by force if 
necessary, this is what I shall find out, if possible.” 

More trouble for my sake,” Nan said. 

It is a pleasure to do anything for your sake,” he an- 
swered, looking down into her sweet face, a look that made 
her heart beat more quickly. But the next mstant she re- 
membered Hartley’s strange words, and she said good-night 
with a change of look and tone that made him wonder. 


218 


]S[AN- HAGGARD. 


OHAPTEE XXVIII. 

It was in the afternoon of the next day. Thorne had 
not yet returned. Hartley had asked Nan to come out into 
the garden and gather some figs. 

They had filled the basket and were sitting in one of the 
old, half -decayed summer-houses. 

‘‘You say Thorne has gone to Lost Island. Did you 
ask him to go?’^ Hartley questioned as he sat watching her 
make a wreath of flowers for the basket. 

“No; it was his own kind thought. He went to try and 
find out the motives of Gasker and Edmund Hoyt for 
keeping me a prisoner on the island.’^ 

“ He takes great interest in your affairs, the boy said, 
his handsome lip curling scornfully. “ I suppose he wants 
to earn your gratitude, and — your love. He would like to 
break another woman^s heart and make her destroy her- 
self. 

“ What do you mean?’’ cried Nan, lifting her startled 
eyes to his, the flowers dropping to the ground. 

Then her eyes flashed indignantly. 

“ I believe you do Doctor Thorne a great wrong in 
speaking of him so,” she said. 

Would to God I could think so!’^ he answered, 
gloomily. 

She saw that he spoke from the depths of a troubled 
heart. 

“ I believe he has been kind to me because his nature is 
noble and helpful,” she went on. 

“ I thought so once. I thought all that and more. 1 
tell you no impassioned girl ever worshiped her lover as I 
worshiped that man — Cyril Thorne, my benefactor, my 
mother’s noble, generous friend, as I thought then, the 
only friend of her solitary, blighted life. But now I think 
that he — he alone caused that blight.” 


NAK HAGGARD. 


219 


What can you mean?’^ 

‘‘ This, if you can- understand. You know your Shake- 
speare by heart, and when I tell you that now I look upon 
Cyril Thorne and my mother as Hamlet did upon his moth- 
er and her second husband, then you will know what bitter- 
ness, what shame, and, alas! what irresolution fills my 
heart.’' 

“ Hamlet! Doctor Thorne and your mother!” cried 
Nan, half stunned with the revelation the words seemed to 
open to her. ‘‘ Do you mean that they are married?” 

They could not marry, because my father is still liv- 
ing,” Hartley said, dropping his head. 

‘‘ Your father is living — where?” 

“ I do not know. I never dreamed of such a thing. She 
had always spoken of him as one dead ; but lately, since I 
met you on the steamer, I have gathered from words I 
have heard him say to her, when they thought themselves 
alone, that he, my father, is still alive. I heard her speak 
of disgrace, and then she said, ‘ My poor Hartley! it will 
always be a stain on him,’ and he answered, ‘ Hartley will 
never know. ’ ‘ He is the image of his father. If they 

should meet some day. Hartley will soon go out into the 
world,’ she said. ‘ His father would not recognize him, 
and the name is different,’ was his reply, as nearly as I 
could -understand; the tone was low.” 

‘‘ Why did you not show yourself then, and call on them 
to explain?” 

‘‘ Why did I not? I was so stunned at first. Then I 
hoped I had misunderstood. 1 could only catch frag- 
ments of their talk. My mother said I had not under- 
stood. I told her that I had overheard something. She 
was greatly agitated. She said I had not comprehended 
the truth, and she would not tell me that yet. I should 
know all in time. I did not tell her what I suspected. I 
could not — ” 

What you suspected?” 


m 


KAK HAGGARD. 


Oh, Nan, do you not see that I suspect, in the last 
few days only, that this man I loved and trusted so, this 
man I was willing to owe everything to — the roof over my 
head, my education, all— because I believed him so good, 
that now I suspect him to be my bitterest enemy — the one 
who has robbed me of name and parents, of a father’s love, 
and of a mother that I could honor? I ought not to tell 
you all this, but I must tell some one. And you, too, have 
known treachery; you, too, have been stung where you 
most trusted. You think it strange I should not have sus- 
pected before when I knew that this benefactor had no 
drop of my blood in his veins; but not a doubt of him ever 
entered my mind. I looked on him as almost a god. Then 
I have rarely seen the two together until this time. I 
have been away at school, and in my vacations he was 
seldom here, and I was so young. Oh, it came like a 
thunder-burst from a clear sky! But I can look back now^ 
and things seem plain enough. I feel why it was my 
mother came here to live in nun-like seclusion — she so 
beautiful and cultivated. He brought her here to this, his 
house. He came and took her away — I was a child, but I 
remember; and how unhappy she was. They told me my 
father was dead. I had not seen him for some time. I 
have not a very clear recollection of him. We came here, 
and afterward I was sent off to school, and a woman — a 
kind, sweet soul who died last year — lived here with my 
mother. Often I have asked her why she did not go into 
company. She would not even go to the little town on the 
island. She would shake her head and smile sadly. It is 
clear to me now — almost clear — and yet I can’t tell her so, 
she is so gentle and sweet. I can’t tell her that I, her 
son, have such dark doubts of her. But ij; will come. It 
will come soon, the hour when I shall denounce them both, 
tind revenge myself upon the man I have loved better than 
my life!” 

‘‘ Oh, do not be hasty. Wait and be sure. I can not, 


KAN HAGGARD. 


221 


can not believe it!’’ Nan cried, sympathizing deeply with 
the excited boy, whose beautiful, mobile mouth was trem- 
bling in nervous agony. 

Her own heart was torn with the struggle between doubt 
and belief. How could she think of Cyril Thorne as base 
and unprincipled? And yet how was this mystery to be 
explained? 

At last she said: 

What did you mean when you said at first that Doctor 
Thorne had broken one woman’s heart and caused her to 
destroy herself?” 

Oh, I might have done him injustice there. Once I 
thought he had been a suffering martyr in that instance. 
You did not know he had been married?” 

Married?” 

“ He never alludes to it. No wonder. It was a bitter 
experience. Yes, ten years ago, when he was only twenty- 
two, he married a beautiful girl. A year afterward she 
committed suicide. His enemies said he made her un- 
happy; that he was jealous and exacting. My mother says 
he was all tender forbearance; that his wife did not care 
for him. She loved another, and had only married him 
in obedience to her parents. But he was deceived. It 
was only after the marriage that he knew the truth. He 
found,Tf)o, that her mind was unbalanced. She gave way 
sometimes to fits of violent passion. She seemed to hate 
her husband, and tormented him in every way. All this 
he bore, and treated her with pitying tenderness. I am 
telling the story as my mother told it. Now I am tempted 
to think the blame may be with him. My mother says she 
tried to kill him. At last, in a fit of mania, she killed 
herself, and her baby, not a week old. The blow must 
have been terrible to him. He has never got over it. It 
is this that gives him that look of gentle sadness that once 
made me love him only the more; I thought it was like 
the look on the face of Christ. He has lived a kind of re- 


222 . NAK HAGGARD. 

cluse life ever since. He is a close student of science^, and 
writes for the scientific and medical journals. He has 
made some discoveries very valuable to medicine, and 
would be a lion in society, if he would go into it, but he 
seems only to live for a narrow circle — my mother and 
those whom he can help. Listen to me singing the man’s 
praises, making him out the hero I once believed him!” 

Hartley broke off abruptly, springing to his feet. 

‘‘ Oh, if I could believe so still!” 

“ Believe it still; believe it until it is proved that what 
you suspect is true,” Han said, earnestly, as she rose and 
stood beside him. “ Put the dark thoughts away. The 
world is so beautiful — the flowers and the leaves, and this 
sweet old .garden.” 

“And you, sweeter than all!” he cried, suddenly, 
catching her hands in his. “ Oh, Han, love me! I have 
no one to care for me much, and you, too, are alone! Let 
us love each other!” 

Before she could speak they heard footsteps approach- 
ing. She drew her hands away just as Thorne’s tall figure 
appeared in the arched door of the summer-house. As he 
saw the two standing so near each other, and noted then 
Han’s face changing color, a slight shade came into his 
face. It was gone in an instant. He said to Han: 

“ I have just returned from the island. I would like to 
speak to you alone.” 

Hartley bent his head in a quick, half -mocking way, and 
went out. Thorne looked after him, a pained, perplexed 
expression on liis face, as though he wondered at the 
change that had come over the young man. He did not 
speak until Han asked: 

“ And did you. find out anything at the island?” 

“Yes.” He sat down and drew her to a seat beside 
him. “ I found out enough to know that you have been 
the victim of a heartless plot. Your guardian’s wife seems 
to have been the instigator. She paid the overseer a sum 


HAGGARD. 


223 


of money, and promised him a much larger amount if he 
succeeded in keeping you on the island. He told me all 
he knew. I used stratagem; I knew it was the only way. 
I invited him on board the yacht, and gave him a short 
sail and a dinner, with plenty of drink. The liquor un- 
loosed his tongue. He told me you were dead — drowned; 
that you and Rena and the crazy Banjo had run away in a 
leaking boat. The boat was found at low tide where it had 
sunk on an oyster-bar. You were all three drowned. He 
seemed to have some remorse about it, but laid all the 
blame upon Mrs. Brent. She had caused you to be brought 
there as Edmund^s wife, and had bound him by an oath, 
and still more by a bribe, not to let you leave the island. 
He did not know her motive, nor, he declared, did Edmund 
know it. He thought she wanted to get rid of both of 
you.’" 

Perhaps it was.” 

“ No, no; I was sure her motive lay deeper. I heard 
something Just now, since I landed, that makes it clear, if, 
as I believe, it refers to your estate. A gentleman who 
came on the steamer on her last trip told me that he saw 
Mrs. Brent at the opera the night before he left. She was 
in a box with some Washington magnate who was very at- 
tentive to her. She was pointed out to him as the beauti- 
ful woman, soon to be a widow, who had had a big stroke 
of luck. She had bought a few hundred acres of poor 
land as an investment, and it had turned out to be rich in 
gold. A company had offered her three hundred thousand 
dollars for it, and she had refused the offer. Nan, I feel 
sure this land was yours. ” 

‘‘ But it is hers now; she bought it for five hundred dol- 
lars.” 

“ The purchase is not valid. It will not hold good in 
law. I think there will be no difficulty in proving that she 
knew the value of the property before she bought it. Then 
you were not of age, and could not sell your property. Nor 


2U 


NAN HAGGARD. 


had Edmund Ho}^ any right to act for you. He was not 
your husband. The marriage was not legal. He had a 
wife already. Yes, dear Miss Haggard, you are free. Cora 
Gasker is Edmund’s wife.” 

^‘Oh, I knew that,” said Nan, quietly. ‘‘I told you 
she said he belonged to her.” 

“ Yes; but I was afraid it was not a real marriage bond. 
I felt inexpressibly relieved to find that you were really 
free from that man.” 

His look, his tones showed how pleasant this knowledge 
was to him. 

“ They were married by the priest, and Mrs. Brent knew 
it. What a heartless woman she is! But she also knew 
that, the priest had gone to parts unknown, and the church 
records had disappeared with him. Gasker and one other 
were the only witnesses to the ceremony, and Gasker was 
under her control; a little money and a few sweet words 
from her would seal his lips as to the marriage. Fortu- 
nately, Cora came back.” 

I shall always be grateful to her,” said Nan. “ But 
now what can be done with my unlucky affairs?” 

They must be seen to at once. It must be ascertained 
if it is your gold mine that has so suddenly enriched Mrs. 
Brent, and steps must be taken at once to show that fraud 
was used in its purchase, and to get it back into your pos- 
session.” 

“ How can I do all this?” 

‘‘ I will see to it. I will leave to-morrow on the return 
boat.” 

You? You have already done too much for me. How 
can 1 repay you? If this gold-laden ^hip of mine does ever 
come to port I can pay you as far as gold — ” 

“ You can not repay me with gold,” he said. ‘‘ I do 
not want it, my little girl. I have more money than I 
can use. Money does not bring happiness to a seared 


KAK HAGGARJ}. 225 

heart. Yours is fresh aud pure. May your fortune, when 
it comes, bring you many other blessings.’’ 

Oh, I think it would be happiness to help people you 
love. I would make Mrs. De Lacy comfortable, and, yes, 
I would build Miss Rachel a new cottage, and send Rena 
to school, and Banjo should have everything he wanted.” 

“ What an unselfish little girl it is!” he said, looking 
smilingly into her sparkling face. ‘‘ You would do all 
this before you bought a diamond necklace?” 

Oh, yes, though I should like the diamonds afterward. 
But I know it must be sweet to make people feel happy.” 

‘‘ And what would you give 7ne to make me happy?” 

‘‘You have scorned my gold,” she said, gayly. 

“ There is something better than gold,” he answ0T8?t— 
“ something I should prize far more than gold; but it has 
not been for me, and it never will be, I fear.” 

He was speaking as though to himself, low, and in an 
absent way-, though his eyes were bent upon her — those 
deep, earnest eyes wftli their shade of melancholy. 

She was silent, for the suspicion Hartley had put into 
her mind rose quickly to her recollection. She turned 
suddenly cold. 

“ You must be very tired,” she said. , “ You had better 
go in and have a cup of tea.” She moved in the direction 
of the house as she spoke. “ Wliat will 'Mrs. Lytton say 
to your going away so soon, and on this business for me, 
that may turn out only rainbow gold?” she was impelled 
to ask as they walked along. 

“ Mrs. Lytton is good enough to think that what I do is 
right,” he answered, and Nan grew yet more cold and 
constrained. 

Hartley stayed by her so closely all the evening that she 
had no further opportunity to speak to Thorne alone. 
Once or twice, when she was singing or talking with Hart- 
ley, she caught his eye, and its sad expression made her 
feel remorseful. He had been so kind to her; he looked 


226 


KAN HAGGARD. 


SO noble^ and he had known so much sorrow. How could 
she distrust him? But she had known Selma Brent, and 
she could not forget how sweet and kind that arch-deceiver 
had seemed. 

I will see him to-morrow before he leaves. I will 
make my good-bye kind at least, when he is taking all this 
trouble just for me,’*’ thought Nan as she lay in her bed, 
sleepless and unhappy, wishing most earnestly that Hart- 
ley Lytton had never told her this miserable story. She 
said to herself that his suspicions could not be true, and 
yet she felt that his story had shaken her faith in the man 
she had looked up to as worthy of all reverence and belief. 

To-morrow came, and Nan, who had not slept till late, 
did not wake until the sun shone in brightly at her win- 
dow. She dressed quickly, and went down to the break- 
fast-room. Mrs. Lytton and Rena were there, and Hart- 
ley was standing at the window. He came and took his 
seat by her at table. Beside her plate lay a magnolia bud, 
its leaves glistening with dew. 

Did you put it here?’’ she asked Hartley, 

He shook his head. 

‘‘ It is a farewell token,” he said, with his half-sneering 
smile. “ See!” He pointed to something that had been 
traced on one of the snowy petals, folded over the golden 
calyx. 

Nan’s face clouded as she read the word Good-bye.” 

He was gone. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

Three weeks elapsed before he returned. 

Nan had grown to feel almost at home at Gray wood. 
The restful charm of the place, the beautiful, time-mel- 
lowed house, the old, rambling garden, the walks leading 
to the sea-shore, and the library with its book-piled shelves, 
delighted her more each day. 


N-AK HAGGARD. 




She employed several hours of every day in reading and 
in hearing Renans lessons. Then there were the hours for 
sewing, when the three female members of the household 
were busy with their needles, while Hartley, from an easy, 
chair, or a softly swinging hammock, read aloud to them, 
or perhaps he played on the piano. He was a born musi- 
cian. Knowledge of the art came intuitively; he knew 
nothing of the science, yet his slender fingers could evoke 
melody that seemed perfect to Nan’s appreciative ear. 

She liked best the dreamy, vaguely sad symphonies that 
he improvised as easily as a bird sings. 

When the shadows lengthened and the breeze sprung up 
they went out-of-doors, sometimes walking to the sea- 
shore, oftener strolling over the grounds. 

Mrs. Lytton went with them occasionally, but oftener 
they went by themselves. Rena would start with them, 
but she soon darted off after some diversion .of her own — 
to hunt the nest of a hen that had started up from a clump 
of bushes with an exultant screech, or to feed the fawns or 
the ducks that skimmed the surface of a little miniature 
pond at the back of the garden. 

So it chanced that Hartley and Nan were left very much 
to each other. They read and talked together, rowing 
upon the little lake or sitting in the old summer-house. 

He made no more passionate demonstrations. He saw 
that Nan shrunk from these, but he was devoted to her in 
what she thought was a brotherly, good-comrade way that 
she enjoyed. 

He was so handsome and winning it was impossible not 
to like him. Nan had a misgiving that his nature was 
bright and effervescent rather than deep. For instance, 
his bitterness against his mother and his fierce suspicion of 
Tliorne seemed to have greatly subsided, or else he had 
determined to take Nan’s advice and wait for proof of 
what he only suspected. 

He was often moody, and often he was so cold and sar- 


NAN HAGGARD. 


2^8 

castic to his mother that tears came into her eyes, when he 
would either rush away, beg her forgiveness, or silently do 
some little service for her. But he did not again speak to 
Kan about that terrible suspicion. Did he lihink she could 
forget it? It rankled in her mind, it clouded the days for 
her in this pretty restful retreat. 

Oh, that I had never heard it!’^ she said to herself 
again and again. Why did Hartley Lytton tell it to 
me? Why did he burden me with this miserable suspicion? 
It was cruel — it was unpardonable! I can not forgive 
him!’^ 

Then she remembered that it had burst from him on the 
impulse of the moment. She came when the suspicion 
was new and stunning. It filled his thoughts, and she was 
the only one he could speak of it to. He had no other ac- 
quaintance here. He knew her own story. She too had 
met with treachery where she trusted. She could give 
him sympathy, and this sympathy — did he think of this? — 
would establish a bond between them. Had jealousy been 
another motive for his burst of confidence to Kan? He 
had seen that she had conceived a high estimate of Thorne. 
He knew this revelation would lower if not destroy it. 
Had this operated as a motive, unconsciously, perhaps, to 
himself, or had he been carried away by the strong neces- 
sity to utter the feelings that had been pent in his breast? 

He was of mixed elements — this Hartley Lytton. But 
he was young — not twenty yet. He would have returned 
to college for another term had he not been taken ill and 
left so weak that Dr. Thorne decided he must recuperate. 

Thorne had nursed him through that illness when he 
was away from his mother— for he had been seized at col- 
lege — with all the skill of a physician and all the gentle- 
ness of a woman. He admitted this to Kan, in a spasm 
of remorseful feeling, the tears coming into his eyes. 

Whatever was his motive for confiding his suspicion to 
Kan, its effect upon her was most unhappy. It marred 


NAN HAGGARD. 


220 


for her the' noble picture of a good man, such as she had 
conceived Cyril Thorne to be. It made her regard Mrs. 
Lytton with distrust. She felt that this fair woman, who 
had secluded herself so utterly from the world, must have 
some mystery in her life. She saw the melancholy on her 
brow and in her eyes. Had she in truth left her husband, 
and given up friends and the world and her own good name 
for Cyril Thorne? She must have been most beautiful 
then — ten years ago. She was still lovely, and she could 
not now be more than thirty-six. Was her husband still 
living, and was this the reason Thorne had never married 
her? Did this account also for his own isolated life, when 
he had wealth and talent and skill in his profession to 
make him an admired and useful member of society? 

There was a mystery, Nan felt sure, and though it was 
hard to believe such evil of a man who had waked an al- 
most worshiping regard in her young breast,- yet how else 
could the strange relation between Thorne and Mrs. Lyt- 
ton be accounted for? 

Nan felt a strong sympathy for Hartley, and this and 
their congeniality in age and tastes drew them together 
during the days that Thorne was away. 

No word came from Thorne himself. The steamer 
made only bi-monthly trips, and the time of its arrival 
was always a little uncertain at this season when the strong- 
winds either retarded or hastened its passage. 

So it happened that Dr. Thorne came unexpectedly. It 
was late one afternoon — just before sunset. Nan, dressed 
in pure white, was swinging in the hammock on the veran- 
da. Hartley had just come from his room, and was stand- 
ing by her, fanning her with the big palm-leaf he had taken 
from her hand. Suddenly he said: 

‘‘ How well you look this evening! Like some white 
moon flower — mystic and sweet. When we are married 
you shall wear white all the time.’^ 

She took his words jestingly, and was about to return a 


2S0 


NAN HAGGAED. 


playful answer, when the sound of a foot on the steps made 
her turn around. Dr. Thorne, in his gray traveling suit, 
stood upon the steps of the veranda. He had heard Hart- 
ley’s words, When we are married.” Hartley knew it 
by the expression on his face; but Nan did not think of it. 
Her heart leaped with pleasure. She jumped from the 
hammock and went to meet him. 

‘‘You have come when we were not looking for you,” 
she said. “ The little wind-storm we had this afternoon 
must have kept us from hearing the steamer’s whistle. 
You look tired,” she added, noticing the pale, worn look 
of his face. “I am afraid you have been worrying over 
my poor, troublesome affairs, and have been disappointed.” 

“ I have not been disappointed. I have good news for 
you. Miss Haggard— great news,” he said, sitting down 
and drawing her into a seat beside him. 

“ When you have rested and have had some coffee, you 
will tell me.” 

“ I will tell you now. It was your land — your mine of 
Dead Hopes — for which that company offered three hun- 
dred thousand dollars. They will pay a third more. The 
land is worth it. The mine is rich in gold.” 

“ But it is not mine. It was sold to Mr. Brent.” 

“ The sale wasmot valid. You were not of age, and the 
marriage was a fraud. The whole transaction was a fraud^ 
and Mr. Brent and his wife can be prosecuted. You were 
coerced into selling the land. It can be shown that your 
guardian knew its value and had been offered a large price 
for it by tliis same company before he or his wife induced 
you to sell it to them for that paltry sum. I don’t think 
tliey will make any attempt to defend themselves. I called 
to see Mr. Brent. He is in a half-paralyzed condition, and 
evidently not now a responsible being. His wife was 
present. At first she was all confidence. She said you 
had married her son, had sold the land to your guardian, 
and gone with your husband to his plantation on Lost 


HAGGARD. 


231 


Island. And she added that you were dead. She had 
learned it, she said, from a letter just received from Lost 
Island. You had met with an accident and been drowned. 
You should have seen her face when I told her you were 
safe; and then I went on to tell that your marriage to her 
son was no marriage, as you had found out at once; that 
Edmund Hoyt was now living with his true wife, and you 
were coming on the next steamer to take possession of your 
heritage. She tried to pretend incredulity, but she broke 
down. I went on to state facts and make her understand 
that her entire scheme was known, and that she had laid 
herself liable to punishment by the law. She turned pale, 
and finally burst into a fit of crying and left the room. 
You will have no difficulty in regaining possession of your 
property.^ ^ 

‘‘ And this I owe to you.’^ 

‘‘ No; you would have found out your rights in the case 
after awhile. You must have done so; it was too plain. 
This immediate fraud has not occupied me all this while. 
I have been looking beyond it, at the conduct of the man 
you call your guardian, from the beginning of his sham 
stewardship in your case. I believe there was fraud, more 
than fraud — crime, at the commencement. I have been 
picking up stray links in the chain. I may never be able 
to put them together, but I shall try. Tell me,’’ he broke 
off, abruptly, how is Banjo? Where is he?” 

‘‘He is over at your house — your perch, as you call it. 
He is not well. He has his old trouble. You know he is 
subject to periodical attacks of terrible pain in his head. 

I have been sitting by him all the afternoon bathing his 
head. About an hour ago he fell asleep. It is time now 
that I went and looked after him.” 

“ I will go to see him after I have spoken to Mrs. Lyt- 
ton. I have not seen her yet. Is she well?” 

“ She is well,” Nan answered briefly. The mention of 
Mrs. Lytton’s name, had changed the current of her feel- 


232 


KAiq’ HAGGARD. 


ings iu an instant. He felt the sudden coolness of her 
voice, and looked at her quickly. At that moment Mrs. 
Lytton came out on the piazza. She uttered an exclama- 
tion of pleasure. 

‘‘You have come,’’ she said. “ I have been listening 
for the boat’s whistle. I suppose the rain and thunder of 
the storm kept us from hearing it. Come in and have a 
cup of coffee; you look tired.” 

She put her hand through his arm, leaning toward him 
tenderly. He stroked the back of her hand gently, his eyes 
upon her face. 

“ I have some news for you,” he said, liis voice full of 
caressing, and his eyes warming as they rested upon her. 

Nan looked at Hartley. He was pale, and his mouth 
was compressed. His eyes flashed an answering look into 
hers. 

“ Let us go to see Banjo,” she said, going to him. Dr. 
Thorne turned to say: 

“ I will come presently.” He saw her put her hand on 
Hartley’s shoulder. She was full of sympathy for him; 
and he saw Hartley take the hand and draw it half around 
his neck, bending his lips to her fingers. Then they 
walked away through the shrubbery together. 

Mrs. Lytton saw Thorne look at the pair with clouded 
eyes; then his glance came back questioningly to her face. 

“ Yes, I think — I am afraid they love each other,” she 
answered. “ I did not dream of such a thing. They 
seemed like children to me. They are too young. You 
do not approve of it?” She looked anxiously into his face. 

“ It takes me by surprise,” was all he said; and for 
many minutes he was silent. 

Silence had fallen also upon Hartley and Nan, as they 
w^alked through the twilight along the winding path that 
led to Thorne’s office. Hartley’s fingers held Nan’s hand 
in a convulsive grasp. At last he turned to her: 

“You are all I have on earth,” he said. “He has 


KAN HAGGARD. 


233 


tak^n my mother from me; taken her love; taken away 
my reverence for her. And now you— you are a great 
heiress — you too will he lost to me. You will go into the 
great world and be followed and flattered; you will cease 
to care for me, if indeed you care for me at all.’’ 

I care for you very much. I can never forget you. 
Why should my having money make me change to you?” 

‘'I don’t believe it will; you are not like other girls. 
Oh, Nan, say that you love me! Say that I am everything 
to you! Say it. Nan, I am so unhappy! I want your 
love so much!” 

Nan hesitated. 

You seem nearer to me than any friend, except Banjo 
and Rena,” she began; but he interrupted her passionately. 

I don’t want you to feel for me in the w^ay you do for 
Banjo and Rena. 1 want your love. I want you to prom- 
ise that you will marry me,” he whispered, drawing her to 
him. Promise it now, with your head against my heart; 
now, before the world rushes in to part us; now, while we 
feel that we are two creatures alone and without friends or 
kindred — only each other!” 

He held her in his arms. The breeze shook the white 
blossoms upon them from the bough overhead. The flow'- 
ers fell into the rings of Nan’s soft hair. Hartley bent his 
lips to her forehead. 

‘‘ Promise now,” he said. 

A cry burst suddenly from the bush beside them, the 
wailing cry of the death-owl, followed by that quivering 
sound so suggestive of the shuddering exit of the soul from 

the body. . 

Nan started up, frightened. The next instant Rena came 

running to them from the office. 

“ Just hear that screech-owl!” she cried. It’s a sign 
of death— and Banjer’s so sick. He’s waked up, Nan, 
and he’s groanin’ with, the pain. I’m goin’ to make a 
hop poultice to put on his head. There goes that screech- 


234 


NAK HAGGARD. 


owl agin! Don’t shoo him. Hartley — that’s bad luck. I’ll 
turn my stocking wrong side out; maybe that’ll make him 
fly off.” 

She sat down on the bed of matted vines and began to 
23ull off her shoe. Nanthad hurried on to the house. She 
found Banjo awake and seemingly in great pain. As she 
bent over him, Dr. Thorne came into the room. He 
injected an opiate into Banjo’s arm that presently eased 
the pain. Then he asked to be left alone with the patient, 
as he wanted to try to get him to answer some questions 
about the exact location of his pain. He thought it possi- 
ble to make him understand. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

This was the last time, for two weeks, that Banjo was 
seen by any one except Doctor Thorne. When Nan and 
Rena came to see him, early next morning, he had been 
removed to the upper part of the office, the sky-lighted 
study and laboratory of Cyril Thorne. Doctor Thorne 
told them his patient could not be seen. 

‘‘ Is he Avorse — is he very ill?” Nan asked, anxiously. 

“ He is not worse. I hope he will, after a time, be bet- 
ter than he has been in a long while. I hope so, but I do 
not know. I can not let you see him for some days. Trust 
him to me. I am trying to do him good.” 

Dr. Thorne was very pale. His manner was quiet, but 
in his voice and in his eyes there were indications of a 
strange excitement. He hurried away from Nan and went 
u]j to the room where his patient lay. 

They saw him no more that day. He did not come to 
lunch or to dinner. 

Mrs. Lytton took a pot of coffee and some food to him 
on a plate that evening. Nan waited anxiously outside. 

‘‘Did you see Banjo?” she asked, when Mrs. Lytton 


NAJS" HAGGAED. 


235 


emerged from the silent house, dark except for a dim light 
burning in the upper room. 

‘‘No; I did not see Cyril even. He came half-way 
down the stairs, and begged me to make no noise. I left 
the coffee on a table for him. I asked about Banjo — how 
he was— and he said, ‘ I don’t know; I dare not say.’ ” 

Nan was racked with anxiety. 

“ What does it mean?” she asked Hartley. 

“ I believe it means that Thorne has tried some experi- 
ment upon Banjo.” 

“ What kind of an experiment?” 

“ He has cut into his head, perhaps, trying to find that 
pain. He is passionately fond of anatomy. I have known 
him to cut a live dog to pieces.” 

Horror blanched the face of Nan. 

“ He is a vivisectionist, then?” she cried. “ I have read 
of the cruelties they practice in the name of science. You 
make me hate him!” 

Hartley’s conscience gave him a twinge. 

“ I think he helped the dog he cut. The animal had 
some internal tumor,” he said. 

But Nan did not hear him. She was picturing Banjo, 
stupefied with opiates, lying like the dead, while Thorne 
cut or sawed into his poor gray head with the sharp, cruel 
steel. 

“ I will see Banjo — Cyril Thorne shall let me see him!” 
she cried. 

The next day she haunted the office. She had knocked 
in vain. She took up her station in the piazza, sitting on 
the steps. Listening intently, she heard a faint groan. 

“ He is living still,” she thought. “ He may be under- 
going more torture from that heartless man.” 

She heard Thorne’s step on the stairs— a light tread 
scarcely audible. He came down-stairs, and she heard 
him step to the door and open it, as though to let in the 


236 


NAK HAGGARD. 


fresh air and sunshine, for he did not come out. Nor did 
he see her until she rose and approached the door. 

‘‘I have come to see Banjo/’ she said. 

I am sorry you can not see him — I can not let you see 
him yet.” 

‘‘ You must — must be permitted to see him!” 

“ I am his physician; his life is in my hands, and I feel 
it my duty to refuse your request.” 

“ His life is in your hands, and you have tampered with 
it, through cruel curiosity and for the sake of what you call 
science. You have done him some deadly injury, perh'!»ri)s 
killed him, and I have let you do this to the creature who 
saved my life, the poor helpless creature who could not 
protect himself. ” 

“You think this of me?” he asked. “You suspect me 
of such brutality?” 

His look, his voice, filled her with self-reproach; but the 
suspicion Hartley had roused in her came to her mind, and 
she answered, recklessly: 

“ I do believe it. Prove it is not so. Let me see Ban- 
jo.” 

“ I will not let you see my patient until I think it is 
right,” he answered, firmly. 

His strong, grave face was colorless as marble. His lips 
were pressed tightly together. She looked up and met his 
eyes, firm, stern, but with a depth of sadness and a flash of 
scorn in them. 

He bowed and turned away. Nan stood like one trans- 
fixed. Conflicting emotions swept through her. Could 
this man be heartless, unprincipled? Could he be, and 
look like that— so grand, so sorrowful? Oh, it must be so! 
Had she not seen, did she not know that he was the lover 
of this woman who had deserted her home and her hus- 
band for him? 

And Banjo! What must she think? Had he sacrificed 
this poor being of benighted mind to his passion for ^xperi- 


KAN HAGGARD. 


237 


meuting? Was Banjo lying upstairs helpless, mutilated, 
\dying, or perhaps dead? Thorne had always had a deep, 
l^d, it ' seemed to her, a morbid desire to probe into the 
c$use of his malady. More than once she has heard him 
say: 

“ If I could only see inside that head. There is some- 
thing there that binds and stifles the intellect, bars the 
nerve fluid from free passage. It must be so. The look in 
his eyes and in liis face expresses struggle. The fettered 
intelligence is trying to break its chains.’’’ 

He had said this more than once. Had the desire to 
find out whether his conjecture was true got the better of 
his humanity, and caused him to sacrifice Banjo? 

She could not know. She could only wait anxiously as 
the days went by. She saw nothing of Dr; Thorne. His 
meals were taken to him. He came out once a day, 
mounted his horse that stood at the gate, and rode away at 
a fast canter. In less than an hour he returned and went 
straight into his office, locking the door behind him. At 
night a light burned in the upper room until day. Nan 
looked at it many times through the night. Sometimes she 
rose and walked about the grounds, her steps circling ever 
around the small, silent building in the shadow of the big 
tree, with the one light glimmering from its upper window. 

She was very unhappy. The feeling that she had' by 
her words and manner placed a wide gulf between herself 
and the man she had once looked upon as so noble and 
lovable was very bitter to her. 

I am an object of dislike and scorn to him, and once 
he was so kind,” she said to herself. I ought not to 
care. He is not worthy. But, oh, I wish I had never 
heard that wretched story!” 

Banjo’s fate continued to be a mystery. Mrs. Lytton 
told her he was alive; that Cyril Thorne believed he 
would get well, but then Mrs. Lytton vowed that she had 
pever seen him. 


238 


NAN HAGGARD. 


What il he is dead?^^ she said once to Hartley. But 
that can^t be, for his. body — 

Thorne could consume it to ashes, bones and all, in 
his chemical furnace, in a single night,’’ said Hartley; and 
the distressed girl buried her face in her shuddering hands. 

One day, instead of a saddled horse before the door of 
Thorne’s office. Nan saw the doctor’s buggy. He got in it 
and drove away. In less than an hour he returned, with a 
lady dressed in black and wearing a veil seated by his side. 
She got out and went with him into the house. 

‘‘ Who can she be? She must have come upon the 
steamer,” Hartley said. ‘‘ The steamer has arrived. I 
heard its whistle an hour ago.” 

Hartley and Nan, walking slowly about under the trees, 
watched the door of the office intently. Presently Thorne 
came out. He made his way to the summer-house where 
Mrs. Lytton usually sat with her book or her needle-work. 
The sheen of her bright muslin dress could be seen through 
the vines. 

Hartley, holding Nan’s hand, turned his steps toward 
the summer-house. They walked slowly, their steps mak- 
ing little sound on the soft sand, and they did not speak. 
The voices from the summer-house became audible. Nan 
would have stopped, but Hartley drew her on. They could 
see the two figures standing. Thorne’s arm was around 
Mrs. Lytton, her head drooped against his shoulder. Hart- 
ley stopped abruptly. Mrs. Lytton was speaking. 

“ What would I have done all these years but for your 
love? It has recompensed me for all the sorrow and dis- 
grace — ” 

Her v^ords were cut short. Hartley broke from Nan’s 
side and rushed into the summer-house. He stood before 
them, his eyes blazing, his frame shaking with emotion. 

You speak of sorrow and disgrace!” he cried, to his 
mother. Who brought them upon you but that man — 
that seducer?” 


KAK HAC4GARn. 2S9 

‘‘ Hartley! what do you mean?’’ she exclaimed. What 
is\hatyou say?” 

‘^')on’t try to deceive me any longer. I have had my 
eyes ^ened weeks ago. I know the hitter truth — what you 
are a 
God! 

played 'benefactor to the woman who had left her husband 
and disgraced her child for his sake!” 

My son, is it possible that you — ” 

“ Hush!” he interrupted. Don’t call me your son! I 
am your son, though I blush to own it; but now I will as- 
sume my right to protect you from that man. You shall 
leave his house to-morrow with me. If he attempts to 
speak to you again, I will kill him!” 

Hartley, you are crazy! How dare you speak to me 
so? How dare you say such things of Cyril Thorne, who 
lias been so good, so — oh! if you knew all — ” 

What is all? If there is any justification for you and 
him, let me hear it. I demand that you tell me all.” 

‘‘You shall have what you ask,” said Thorne. “ I 
understand you. Your conduct toward me for some time 
past is plain to me now. Your suspicion was reasonable — 
natural, perhaps, yet you might have trusted me. You 
had never known me to deceive you. Come, follow me, 
both of you; you shall know all. It is time you did.” 

With Mrs. Lytton walking at his side he led the way to 
his office. Hartley and Nan followed. Not a word was 
spoken between them. They were in a maze of bewildered 
tliought and tumultuous feeling. What was this all they 
were soon to know? 

They entered the office, the room' that gave on the 
piazza, fitted up as a library and sitting-room. A tall 
woman dressed in black, the same who had come with 
Thorne in his carriage, was restlessly walking about the 
room. As the door opened she turned and came quickly 


Ed what he is. I thought him my benefactor. Good 
yiiat a fool I was not to know long ago why he 


240 


KAN HAGGABB. 


toward tliem. Her eyes were upon Mrs. Lytton. Sle 
stretched out her arms. 

“ My daughter, my own Emily!” she exclaimed, and 
threw her arms around Mrs. Lytton, passionately em- 
bracing her. 

She lifted her face, wet with tears, and put bsck her 
dark hair streaked with silver. Still half embracing Emily, 
she looked into her face, a tender, remorseful gaze. 

Ah! you have suffered — you have suffered, my poor 
darling! I might have kept those lines from coining into 
your sweet face. I have been so wicked, so haul ! But I 
suffered too. I longed for you; my heart ached many, 
many times. But I was too proud to take back what I 
said when I cast you off. I made that wicked oath never 
to speak to you. After your unfortunate marriage I forbid 
your name to be called in my presence. I said I would 
disown my son if ever he made friends with you, or did 
anythmg for you. He did not dare to let me know all the 
while he was caring for you, coming to see you here, tak- 
, ing a mother's as well as a brother’s place, my good, dear 
Cyril. ” 

He has been good indeed,” Mrs. Lytton said, turning 
to Thorne and laying her hand on his arm. Never did 
brother do so much for a sister. 1 made him bring me 
here after my husband was sentenced and sent to prison. 
I wanted to hide myself and my disgrace as a convict’s 
wife from the world. He has been my consolation. He 
cheered me, supported me, educated my boy, your grand- 
son. This is he, my mother. This is my Hartley, named 
for my father. Hartley, this is your grandmother,” she 
said to the bewildered boy. 

My grandmother!” he repeated, when the stately lady 
had embraced him, saying: 

‘‘lam so glad he is like our family.” 

“ My mother’s mother?” asked Hartley. 

“ Yes, your mother’s mother, who was so hard-hearted 


KAK HAGGARD. 


241 


Xs to cast her off when she made an unfortunate marriage, 
s^ool-girl that she was. I have never seen her since. I 
miVht never have been united with her, in spite of the 
lon^ng for her that I wickedly repressed, if sickness had 
not softened my heart, and if my son had not overheard 
me speak her name — not a month ago it was — and told 
me she was still living. Then I found that he had been 
caring for her ever since her husband^s sentence, and he 
had not let me know, for I had vowed to cast him off if he 
made friends with her. I would have come with him at 
once, but I was too weak. I have come now as soon as I 
was able, and you must go home with me; you must let 
me make amends for all these years of cruel neglect, when, 
but for your uncle Cyril, you would have suffered from 
.want and friendlessness — 

‘‘ And Doctor Thorne is my uncle — my mother’s broth- 
er?” 

“Yes; did you not know?” 

“ No,” Mrs. Lytton said. “ He did not know there 
was any tie of blood. I am to blame for that. I felt I 
had disgraced the family name. I took my middle name, 
Lytton. I knew, too, that you had said you would disin- 
herit my brother if he ever spoke to me. I was afraid you 
might find out, and so I kept the relationship a secret even 
from Hartley. I am afraid that was not wise, but I have 
always meant to tell him all when he was older. It was 
hard to tell him that his father is a convict — was a convict, 
for he is now dead. Let his errors and sins be forgot- 
ten.” 

Hartley was like one stunned by a blow. Suddenly he 
fell at Thorne’s feet. 

“ My friend, my guardian angel, my mother’s brother,” 
he cried, “will you forgive me — can you forgive me for 
that vile suspicion?” 

Thorne raised him and embraced him. 

“ i forgive you heartily,” he said. “ What you thought 


242 


NAN HAGGAED. 


was reasonable;, natural though it never occurred to me 
that you could doubt me, Hartley.” 

I was a short-sighted ingrate to do it,” cried the im- 
pulsive boy. “ And I made her doubt you,” he said, look- 
ing at Nan, where she stood a little way off, pale and over- 
l)owered with emotion. I told her what I believed. I 
am so glad she knows the truth!” 

They were talking apart. Mrs. Lytton had made her 
mother sit down on the sofa and seated herself beside her. 

Go now,” said Thorne to Hartley, and talk to your 
grandmother. Make her feel that she is forgiven. She 
has done wrong, but she has been punished; she has suffered 
and hid her suffering through the pride she inherited. Sit 
down by her and talk over your plans for the future. I 
will take Miss Haggard upstairs to see my patient.” 

He approached Nan. 

‘‘ Will you go upstairs now and see your friend?” he 
asked. ‘‘ 1 think he is well enough to see you to-day.” 

She turned her pale face and her eyes, shining through 
tears, upon him. 

Don’t speak to me so kindly,” she said. “ I have 
done you so much wrong in my heart. I have thought 
such vile things of you — of you, so good, so — ” 

‘‘ Do not praise me,” he said, smiling faintly. There 
is Banjo. Kemember I have sacrificed him to my passion 
for scientific experiment.” 

I no longer believe it — I no longer have anything but 
trust in you. Whatever you have done to Banjo has been 
for his good.” 

I hope so,” he said, as he led her upstairs. I must 
tell you that I have tried an experiment, as you say. I 
have performed an operation upon him — a difficult and 
dangerous operation. I was so anxious about its result 
that I neither eat nor slept for days. I watched him day 
and night. I did cut, or rather saw, into his skull. Miss 
Haggard.” 


KAN HAGGARD. 


243 


V Oh, Doctor Thorne!’^ 

performed the operation known as trepanning. I 
did it to save his life. He would have died eventually from 
the jiressure on his brain, caused by the indention of his 
skull, the result of a blow on the head. It was tliis that 
caused his mental derangement. I hoped to relieve him. 
There was a great risk, I knew; but the danger is past. 
He is rapidly getting well. His splendid constitution helps 
him wonderfully. But I must beg you to be cautious. Do 
not give way to any excitement, any agitation when you 
see him. You will find him changed. And — and there is 
another reason why you will be agitated.’’ 

^ ‘ Another reason ?” 

“ You will know it soon. It will be a great surprise, 
only do not give way to your feelings, for he is still very 
weak.” • 

I will be careful,” she said, as he opened the door. 

They had passed through the large sky-lighted room that 
was Thorne’s study and laboratory, full of apparatus, with 
books and shelves containing cases of instruments and large 
sealed jars with abnormal excrescences and diseased parts 
of the human body preserved in spirits. Wired skeletons 
stood upright in tall glass cases, skulls grinned from the 
shelves. There was a long operating-table and other ana- 
tomical appurtenances. 

The room was empty. They passed through it, and 
Thorne, tapping first on a small green baize door, opened 
it, and conducted Nan into a small, softly lighted room 
quietly and cozily furnished. 

In an invalid’s chair, with a table beside it bearing a 
waiter with jellies, grapes, strawberries and fresh-cut fiow- 
ers upon it, reclined Banjo. 

He lifted his head as the door opened. Anabel stood 
still in dumb amaze. Was it Banjo? How he was 
changed ! He was pale and thin, and his head was band- 
aged, but this did not constitute the change. His feat- 


244 


NAK HAGGARD. 


< 

ures^ the whole character of his face •was altered. Oh, 
now she understood — now, as his eyes fell upon her face 
and a vivid light flashed over his features. His mind had 
got free. Keason was on her throne. It was the light of 
intelligence, radiating from every feature, that made the 
wonderful change. 

It was no longer a blank, soulless mask she looked upon, 
it was a face full of intelligence and feeling. 

The flash that went over his face like illuminating light- 
ning when he saw her was the flash of recognition — of 
tenderness. 

He made an effort to rise, then stretched out his hand. 

“ Anabell .my darling, my daughter I he cried. 

She darted to him and knelt beside his chair. 

He drew her face to his and kissed her again and again. 

Then he put her from him, and, with one arm around 
her neck, looked at her. 

My beautiful daughter! child of my lost Anabel! how 
much you are like your mother, my daughter!” he said. 

She looked up quickly at Thorne. Her look said : 

‘‘ Alas! his mind is not yet right.” 

He answered her, smiling: 

‘‘ He is perfectly sensible.” Then he said to the sick 
man: ‘‘ Mr. Haggard, your daughter does not yet know 
that you are her father. ” 

“ My father!” echoed Nan, starting to her feet. “ My 
father is dead. Why do you say my father?” 

“ Because it is true. He is your father, alive and re- 
stored to you. He did not die, as Stephen Brent reported. 
He was very ill with inflammation of the brain. He strug- 
gled back to life, but not to reason or recollection. Then 
Brent, the man whose hand had done the injury, sent him 
to Lost Island; He has been there ever since. Providence 
sent you there, his own daughter, and through you he has 
been rescued, and the dark scheme that deprived him of 
fortune, and almost of life, has been laid bare/" 


KAK HAGGAHD. 


245 


And it was Stephen Brent, the man who called him- 
self my guardian, who did this? It was he who tried to 
kill jfou, my father?^’ 

It was he. He did a more damning deed. He killed 
your mother. She died trying to save me. I had come 
home unexpectedly to Brent. He thought I was in Eng- 
land. My wife told me of his conduct in my absence; his 
crazy passion for her; his proposal that she should go with 
him to Lost Island; his boast that he could be rich, that 
he knew where to find the gold; he could sell the mine for 
a fortune when it had come into his hands, as it would. 

While she was speaking, he came in, and I confronted 
him with his discovered villainy. In his rage and disap- 
pointment he seized a marble ornament from the mantel 
and aimed a blow at me. Anabel rushed between us and 
the blow fell upon her head and crushed it. As I bent 
over her he struck me on the head. I knew nothing more. 
I have no recollection of the burning house or how I got 
out of it. After Brent set the house afire he must have 
seen you in your little bed, wrapped you in the coverlid to 
keep ypu from seeing, and borne you out of the burning 
house, in some impulse of pity or remorse. I do not re- 
member my illness. My life on Lost Island is like a 
dream.' I had momentary glimpses of reason and recol- 
lection. They passed over me like waves. There seemed 
to be a tight band of iron around my head. Sometimes it 
was a band of fire. When I first saw you the band seemed 
to loosen suddenly. I thought you were my wife, for a 
moment, then I seemed to remember that you must be my 
child, and then the idea was gone before I could grasp it. 
It came again that night in the burning fort when you 
saved my life. I remembered for a moment, then the 
numbness and the stupor came back. The band of iron 
crushed out recollection. It came again for a moment 
when we stood among the rising waves on the oyster-reef — ’’ 
When you held me up in your arms and kept me 


246 


NAK HAGGARD. 


from drowning until lielp came — until Rena and Doctor 
Thorne and Hartley saved us, Oh^ how much we owe to 
Doctor Thorne! He has given me freedom and fortune, 
and now, best of all, my father!’^ cried Nan, turning to 
Doctor Thorne. She grasped his hand and carried it to 
her lips. She bent her head over it, sobbing in a parox- 
ysm of joy and thankfulness and regret. And I have 
been so imgrateful!’’ she murmured. 

You promised to be very quiet, ’Mie said. Instantly 
she calmed herself and turned to her father. 

‘‘You have nothing to be grateful for,’^ he went on. 
“ I have done only my ordinary duty as a man and a phy- 
sician. I have, 1 fear, transgressed against my duty as a 
doctor in letting you have this agitating interview with my 
patient. Miss Haggard. Your father has talked too much. 
You must not let him say another word. Sit here by him 
and hold his hand. Your presence will be enough. I want 
him to get well as fast as possible, that he may go away on 
the next trip of the steamer. It is getting too warm here. 
If he improves as wonderfully as he has been doing he will 
be able to take the trip, and it will do him good. My 
mother will go then, and take my sister with her. Now I 
will leave you alone. I know you will obey directions and 
be a good nurse.’’ 

He was gone with just a kind look, a smile, gentle but 
not beaming, such as the smiles he had been wont to give 
her before the eloud came between them. 

Through the two weeks that followed, his manner did 
not change. He was all gentleness and thoughtful kind- 
ness. To his mother and his sister he was affectionate and 
attentive, but in his manner to Nan, kind though it was, 
there was always that slight coldness and constraint. She 
did not understand it. She thought to herself, “ Gentle 
as he is, he is unforgiving.” 

She was never alone with him. He seemed to avoid see- 
ing her when there was no one else present. But he made 


KAH HAGGABD. 


24 *? 


every provision for her comfort and that of her father; and 
he was devotedly attentive to Mr. Haggard, who conva- 
lesced rapidly, and was well enough to be taken on board 
the steamer wlien she made her return trip. 

Gray wood was left empty and deserted. Mrs. Lytton, 
with Hartley, accompanied her mother, going back to the 
grand old home of her childhood with mixed feelings of 
pain and pleasure. 

There were mixed emotions, too, in Nan’s breast as she 
stood on the deck of the same vessel in which she had 
sailed as a bride a few months ago. She remembered her 
bitter awakening, her grief and mortification, the kindness 
and tact of Cyril Thorne — how quietly and thoughtfully 
he had saved her from the drunken embraces of the man 
she believed to be her husband; how he had cared for her 
then and on board the Curlew ” in the storm. 

How tenderly he had looked and spoken then! And 
again on board the ‘‘ Curlew,” after he had rescued her 
from the rising tide on the oyster reef. Oh, surely he cared 
for her a great deal then I His eyes had said so. Those 
misty, sad eyes, they had seemed to glow with an infinite 
tenderness and compassion for her. And now he was so 
different. She felt the change miserably. It dashed the 
happiness of this time of joy, when she should have been 
as gay as Rena herself — Rena, who was perfectly a-quiver 
with delight all day, dancing around ‘‘ Banjo,” as she 
would still call “Mr. Haggard, and clapping her hands a 
dozen times a day as she said : 

‘‘Oh! it’s just like the stories in that old picture-book of 
pap’s that Gasker burned up in the fort. It’s just like the 
tale about ‘ Aladdin and the Magic Lamp,’ to think we’ve 
all got away from the old enchanted house, and Banjo’s 
come out of the spell, and we are rich and got a mine full 
of lumps of gold to buy us a fine house and a carriage and 
horses — ” 

“ And to get a school-ma’am for Rena,” Mr. Haggard 


248 


NAN HAGGARD. 


would interpose, ‘‘ who will teach her grammar and rhet- 
oric and lots of things/^ whereat Rena’s feathers would 
fall a little; but she declared her willingness to learn, that 
her adopted father and sister might not be ashamed of her. 

Nan was sitting by herself on deck at sunset the last day 
of the voyage, when Hartley came up and sat down by her. 
She had avoided being alone with him since the memorable 
hour that showed them how unjust had been their distrust 
of Dr. Thorne. Somehow she felt disinclined to any con- 
fidential talk with him. She did not want him to make 
love to her again. His passionate avowal had thrilled her 
girlish pulses simply because it was sweet to be loved and 
admired, but it had not touched her heart. 

When he spoke, as he presently did, of his love for her, 
and reproached her for the coldness she had shown of late, 
she turned to him and said, earnestly: 

I am afraid, dear Hartley, I do not respond to the 
feelings you have for me. I care for you as a friend — as 
a comrade; but there doesn’t seem any place in my heart 
for love just now. I want to be everything to my father. 
He has suffered so much. He wishes me to be educated, 
and I must study and try to become accomplished. I am 
so young; you are so young — we have much to do to pre- 
pare ourselves for life. Let us not think about love and 
marriage just now.” 

A flush of disappointment came into his cheek. 

‘‘You talk sagely,” he said, with bitterness. “ Would 
you be so wise and cold if some one else asked for your 
love? — if Cyril Thorne — ” 

She turned upon him, her face pale, her eyes flashing. 
He did not finish his sentence. 

“ Forgive me — forgive me. Nan,” he said, quickly. “ I 
am so disappointed. I felt bitter. I will not press my 
love upon you again. I will wait and work — try to achieve 
sometlimg — try to deserve you. You may love me yet. 


NAlSr HAGGARD. 


249 


Promise me you will not hate me — you will not record my 
faults and mistakes against me.’ ^ 

“ I promise always to be your friend,” she said, and 
gave him her hand. He kissed it and kept it a moment. 
Nan heard a step near her — she looked, and saw Thorne 
walking away. She knew he had seen Hartley kissing her 
hand. Well, what did that matter? he cared nothing for 
her. 

A week later they were installed in comfortable apart- 
ments in a hotel in the city. Mr. Haggard had had no 
difficulty in establishing his identity. Several of his former 
friends and acquaintances, men in prominent business po- 
sitions, knew him at once. He drove to the home of Ste- 
phen Brent and had a short interview with that broken 
and dying man. He found him hardly conscious. He 
was alone except for a hired nurse. His wife was in Wash- 
ington City. She had left him, and he was dying alone, 
with none to soothe the dark hours of pain and remorse. 
He was overcome at the sight of the man he had so deeply 
wronged. When he recovered, he acknowledged everything 
in the presence of a witness, and prayed Mr. Haggard to 
forgive him. 

Though the blood of his idolized wife was upon the 
head of this man, Mr. Haggard could not withhold his pity 
and his forgiveness, the man looked so ghastly. His 
face was drawn with pain, his eyes, in their hollow sockets, 
were full of anguish and pleading. 

He made some arrangements for his comfort, and went 
away, feeling his heart lightened of the burden of bitterness 
and hatred which he had borne against this man. 

That evening Cyril Thorne came to see them to say 
good-bye. He was going across the ocean; going to be 
gone for some time. He would travel through Europe and 
a part of the Eastern Continent. He said he had long 
wanted to take this tour, but had not been a])le to leave 
home, having ties that held him, and other interests than 


250 


KAN HAGGARD. 


his own to look after. But now his sister and his mother 
were happy with each other, and Ilartle}^ could look after 
them. Hartley would probably marry before very long, 
and he and his young wife would brighten the old home 
and make his mother young again. They would not need 
him, and he would recruit in the meantime. His health 
had run down a little. 

He looked worn and pale. Nan longed to have one word 
alone with him; to ask him why he was so cold to her; but 
his visit was short, and her father was present all the 
while. He shook hands with them. Nan was afraid he 
would feel how cold and trembling her fingers were. She 
was conscious that she seemed indifferent and constrained. 

He thinks me a shallow, ungrateful butterfly, vain of 
the good fortune that has come to me, and forgetful that 
it came through him,’' was her thought. But she could 
not utter what was in her heart. She simply said good- 
bye, and wished he might have a safe and ha])py voyage, 
hating herself for the commonplace utterance. When he 
was gone, she hurried to her room, and threw herself upon 
the bed, sobbing as though her heart would break. It did 
not comfort her to know that her father had sold his gold- 
lands for three hundred thousand dollars, and that he had 
bought a beautiful new house which was being furnished 
and fitted up for their occupation. 

Her chief consolation was Rena. Rena seemed to under- 
stand, and though the quick-witted girl said nothing to in- 
timate that she knew the cause of Nan’s grief, her affec- 
tion was a comfort. Then, too, it was a pleasure to buy 
presents for Mrs. He Lacy, and for Miss Rachel, and Mr. 
Slow, and take them to Haggard Creek, where she went 
with Rena to see her old friend in her tumble-down house, 
tell her all her wonderful adventures, and persuade her to 
come and live with them in the grand new house. 

‘‘ I’ll go,” Mrs. He Lacy said. ‘‘I foresee that you 
and little Rena here are destined to be great belles and will 


KAN- HAGGARD. ^51 

require no end of clever chaperoning. I will be a model 
chaperon.’^ 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

Three years later. It is an August day that has opened 
with brilliant sunshine, but suddenly clouded over. 

Clouds and mists rest upon the mountain, a spur of the 
Alps, where Nan Haggard is standing. She is trying to 
find the path by which she came up an hour ago, when it 
was so bright. She left the guide and her maid sitting on 
a rock where they had eaten luncheon. She said to them 
that she would walk a little way up the mountain and 
gather some blue gentian flowers and some of the lovely 
mountain mosses with scarlet dots among the gray. She 
had gone on, springing from rock to rock until she had 
walked much further than she had intended or knew. And 
then the mist came suddenly about her, wreathing and 
folding like bands of ghosts. She turned to retrace her 
steps. Slie lost her way, and here she was wandering be- 
wilderedly, not able to see many feet before her, and fear- 
ing every moment that she would step into some chasm or 
down some precipice. 

She had called again and again upon the guide and upon 
her maid. Once or twice she thought she heard their voices 
answer her far below, but she could not locate the sound 
sufficiently to be guided by it. 

She had not called for some minutes. She was using all 
her strength in the effort to keep self-possessed and cool, 
and to make her way as carefully as possible. But her 
heart beat quickly with a feeling of fear and a sense of 
loneliness as she went on and on among the interminable 
masses of granite and the few stunted j^ines and sparse 
bushes that only appeared to her as she neared them 
through the thickening mist. Oh! if she had a compass. 
Oh! if she had some companion. The solitude, the silence. 


m 


HAH HAGGAEB. 


and all these ghostly wreaths of moving, chilly , vapor filled 
her with terror and desolation. 

Suddenly, through a rift in the mist, she saw a figure 
just before her — a man’s gray-robed figure. Or was it a 
human-like shape of stone, such as had deceived her more 
than once? 

It might be a man — a robber, an outlaw. She had heard 
that there were outlaws haunting the mountain fastnesses, 
who robbed travelers and threw them over the precipices 
into the rocky abysses below. She stood, doubtful what to 
do. Her heart beat so loudly with fear she could hear its 
throbs in the utter stillness. 

The man turned. She gave a wild cry of joy and rushed 
to him, falling fainting at his feet. 

Cyril Thorne lifted her in his arms, and put back the 
hair that had fallen over her face. 

‘‘Nan!” he cried, in amaze. “Nan — darling little 

Nan — is it you?” 

He kissed her in his surprise and joy. She felt the 
warm kisses upon her lips as she was recovering, and when 
she opened her eyes and saw him bending anxiously over 
her, she burst out crying and laughing at once, clinging to 
him in her excitement and the strong revulsion of feeling. 

In a little while she controlled herself, and sat up beside 
him on the rock. 

“ Did you drop from the clouds in answer to my prayer 
for somebody to come to my help?” she asked. 

“ Did you come with the mists?” he asked. “ I though 
you were the Maid of the Mist, when I turned and saw you 
in your gray dress and veil, and your white face. How 
came you alone?” 

She explained how she had left her guide and her maid 
below, and had wandered on until the mists came and be- 
wildered her. 

“ Papa and Rena and Hartley went on a little excursion 
to a lake in the valley this morning betimes,” she said. 


KAK HAGGARD. 


253 


‘‘I had a headache and begged to stay, but later, when 
the headache had gone, I took a fancy to walk up the 
mountain. We have been here in the little village at the 
foot of the mountain for three days. We leave to-mor- 
row. We are going on to Paris to join your mother and 
sister. They are there, as you know — do you not?’^ 

“ Yes, I know,'' he answered, a little constraint in his 
tone. ‘‘ I am going to meet them there. I thought Hart- 
ley was with them." 

We have all been together until a few weeks ago. 
Papa determined to take a little run into Switzerland for 
Eena's sake, she is so fond of scenery, and she sketches 
beautifully. Hartley wanted to come with us, naturally — 
you understand." 

“ Yes, naturally; I understand. When is he to be mar- 
ried?" 

Oh! not just yet. Eena is so young, and she is not 
quite through with her schooling, but she has developed 
into such a bright, pretty girl you would not know her. 

‘‘ What has Eena to do with Hartley's marriage?" 

“What! Why he is to marry her. They have been 
engaged for several months. Did you not know?" 

“ I did not. I thought he was to marry you. You were 
engaged to him when I went away." 

“ I never was engaged to Hartley. I never cared for 
him except in a friendly, sisterly way. Your mother-* 
your sister could have told you that in their letters. 

“ I never asked about you when I wrote," he said, his 
voice a little unsteady. 

“ No; you did not care. You had no interest in me. I 
was less than a stranger in your thoughts." 

“No interest in you?" he cried, his tones trembling 
with strong passion. “ Nan Haggard, I left my home be- 
cause I took too deep an interest in you. I loved you, 
aiid I believed you and Hartley loved each other. I knew 
you did not care for me. I was too care-worn, too sad- 


254 


NAK HAGGARD. 


dened for a bright young being like you. It was madness 
in me to love you. I came away to cure myself of it — and 
I have done it!’^ he added, bitterly. 

She turned to him, blushing, radiant. She put both her 
hands in his. 

Don’t try any more to cure yourself of the madness,’’ 
she whispered, ‘‘ for I love you — I have always loved you. 
You are my dream of all that is noble and grand in man- 
hood.” 

The mists continued to wreathe about the gray rocks, 
but they did not heed them. Thorne knew every foot of 
the way down the mountains. He had traversed the paths 
often alone, and had sat or stood alone on the gray crags, 
feeling himself a man who must strengthen and steel his 
heart against the softer emotions and unavailing regrets, 
who must go through life alone, doing what good he might 
as a panacea to his aching and empty heart. 

And now — Fate had been kind to him at the last. He 
was loved; he would not go through life alone. He would 
have this little hand in his, and those sweet lips and eyes to 
cheer and. inspire him. 


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